30 Days of Night
by Vilandra4
Summary: COMPLETE Set during New Moon, crossover with the film 30 Days of Night. When Bella travels to Barrow, Alaska to attend her cousin's wedding, she unwittingly steps into one of the most dangerous situations of her life. The Cullens will appear later.
1. Prologue & Chapter 1

_30 Days of Night_

Notes:

This story is based both on the_ Twilight_ series by Stephenie Meyer and the movie _Thirty Days of Night_. It's set after Bella's 18th birthday, when Edward has left. Some things I will have to change from both stories in order to make things work. None of the characters belong to me, I am just borrowing them for my own amusement. This is my first attempt to write a _Twilight_ fanfic, though I have written several _Buffy_ fanfics, which I encourage you to check out if you happen to like the show. I hope you enjoy this! I plan for it to be a longer fic, so stick with me.

Prologue: The Beginning of the End:

And so here I was, dying in the place of someone I loved…again. Only this time, I'd had a choice in the matter and I'd made it. Agonizing over decisions had always been the most difficult part for me. But I'd made my choice now. I could relax and, for a few moments, I could indulge in a little mental montage of my life – short as it'd been. I was eighteen years old. I'd only ever been in love once, with a vampire of all people. A vampire who'd left me. Of course, I'd hoped my mental montage would be a little more positive than this, but all I could think about was Edward.

Edward staring at me blackly my first day of biology at Forks High School, as I knew now, desperately trying not to drain me dry in front of the entire class.

Edward pulling me out of the way of Tyler's van with that slightly terrified look in his eyes like all the sudden he knew his life was over.

Edward standing in the sunlight in the meadow with millions of tiny diamonds reflecting off of his skin. _Beautiful_.

Our first kiss. My reaction to our first kiss. I could still feel a wave of desire roll over me. Every kiss afterward, how badly I wanted him, how badly I wanted to be like him.

I tried not to remember the pain. After all, my last moments montage was supposed to be pleasant and all that. But remembering the good moments always made me think of the bad.

Edward telling me he didn't want me anymore and, just like that, they were gone. Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, Esme, Carlisle. My entire family, just gone.

Every second – every excruciating second after – when all I felt was that someone was ripping me apart inch by inch until I had a hole in my chest that constantly oozed pain.

Dying in the place of someone I loved, well, that was the easy part. The hard part was what would come after. I looked up into their eyes – into _her_ eyes – and I knew that I had to do this. It was the only way. They would kill all of us and no one would ever know what had happened here. It would be like Barrow, Alaska had just disappeared off of the map. Someone had to live, if only that the rest of us wouldn't be forgotten.

Charlie. The thought of my father made me hesitate. I didn't know what would happen after this, but I knew that I would probably never see him again. I hadn't even gotten a chance to say good-bye. I would never graduate high school. He would never walk me down the aisle at my wedding. I would never be a mother. And though all of those things made me incredibly sad, I knew that I was making the right decision. After all, I was the only one without anything left to lose.

So I plunged the needle into my arm and watched as the red liquid shot into my veins. And that's when the burning started.

Chapter One: The Wedding:

I was sitting at the breakfast table, absently spooning at my Cheerios with one hand while my other arm was draped across my midsection. Every time I breathed I felt like my insides were going to spill out all over the kitchen floor. It was agonizing. The vampire whom I never named, not even in my thoughts, had been gone for three months. I was getting worse instead of getting better. I knew it. Charlie knew it. Every morning he stared at me, his mustache twitching as he thought about what to say to me. But he never said anything. He couldn't. There weren't any words to comfort me and he knew it.

I seriously thought he was going to try to send me away. He had been working up to it last Wednesday. "Bells…," he'd said, looking at up me, his brown eyes shining with concern.

"Yeah, Dad?" I'd responded, my voice hollow and weak even to my ears. He'd shuddered a little when I spoke. It was like a zombie talking.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," he'd begun, but faltered. I guess he'd seen something hardening in my eyes. "Well, just…never mind."

Now here we were, a week later, and he was working himself up to something again. I knew because he hadn't eaten all of his eggs; he was just forking them around his plate. "Bells…," he started again.

"Yeah, Dad?" I asked, wondering if I was actually awake or just dreaming about having this conversation all over again.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," he said. This time, his eyes hardened with resolve. I took a deep breath, set down my spoon, and looked up at him.

"What?" I asked.

"Your cousin Eben is getting married next week," Charlie explained.

"Really?" I asked in surprise. This was not what I was expecting. Eben was five years older than me. He was Charlie's nephew. He had lived in Seattle with his mother and father until he turned eighteen when, rather abruptly, he had decided to move to a little town at the northernmost part of Alaska called Barrow.

"Yep," Charlie said. "He invited us to come."

"Oh," was all I could think to say. I looked down at my bowl. My Cheerios were drowning in milk, turning mushy and completely unappetizing.

"Thing is," Charlie continued, clearing his throat, "I've got two men out with the flu and I can't take the time off. But I don't want him to think that we don't care about him or aren't happy for him or whatever," he said. "Anyway, I was hoping you might considering going for the both of us."

"Dad," I started, but he cut me off.

"It's just, Bells, his parents aren't going. They're still not happy with him for moving all the way up there. They think he's lost it. And they've never met the girl. And her parents are dead. They don't have many friends and Eben's always been more like a son to me than a nephew. I wish I could go, but the timing just isn't right."

"When is the wedding?" I asked. A wedding was the last thing on earth I wanted to go to. I couldn't even imagine having to watch two people swear to love each other forever, knowing full well that such promises meant practically nothing. At least, in my experience. But I knew how my Dad felt about Eben and I knew that I would want someone from my family to be at my wedding. I hadn't seen Eben in years, but he had always treated me kindly, instead of teasing my relentlessly like he could have.

"Well, that's the thing," Charlie looked down at his eggs and started desperately moving them around his plate again. "You know where Eben lives right?"

"Barrow," I said.

"They're having the wedding there," Charlie explained.

"So?" I asked, not quite following him.

"Well, Barrow is the northernmost town in the United States. It's near the Arctic Ocean. So, you know, their ratio of day to night is a little different." Charlie waited for me to say something, but I still didn't quite know what he was talking about. Charlie sighed. "The wedding is January first. They have this tradition up there," he shook his head, "January starts the thirty days of night and, for some reason, everyone up there thinks it's wildly romantic to get married on the brink of the thirty days."

"Back up a bit," I said, holding up my hand. "Thirty days of night?" I asked.

"Like I said, different day to night ratio. It's so far north that from January first to January thirtieth the sun never rises."

"Twilight," I muttered.

"Yep," Charlie said.

This was such a bad idea. "Charlie," I began, but he cut me off again.

"Look, Bells," he said sternly, "you're miserable here in Forks. I can see it. Hell, everyone can see it. Now, Edward isn't coming back." I cringed when he said his name. That hole in my chest started throbbing again and I grabbed my midsection under the table so Charlie wouldn't see. If Jasper'd had a chance to feel even a modicum of the pain I was in he never would have let my former vampire boyfriend leave. "And I'm sorry that hurts you so badly, I really am. But there's nothing that either of us can do about it. I thought about making you go back to your Mom's." I opened my mouth to protest, but he held his hand up to silence me. "But I knew that wouldn't go over well. So this is the next best thing. I think you need to get out of Forks for a little while, Bells. Not forever, just long enough that maybe you can start to feel better about everything."

"So, what, I fly up there, stay around for a couple of days for the wedding and then come home?" I asked.

Charlie chuckled nervously. "Well, not exactly."

"What do you mean?" I asked, narrowing my eyes impatiently.

"You can fly in alright," Charlie said. "But once the thirty days begins, well, they don't let anyone fly out. And you can't really drive out either. It's too dangerous."

I started at Charlie for a few seconds, processing what he was saying. "So let me get this straight," I said. "You want me to fly to Barrow, Alaska to go to the wedding of my cousin, whom I've only really interacted with on four occasions that I can remember, in the middle of January, right when this thirty days of night crap starts, where I will be stuck for said thirty days, not only missing school, but also being stuck in a town that's probably so much more boring and horribly cold than this one."

"Yep," Charlie said, taking a bite of eggs. He was rather pleased with himself. For some reason he thought I was going to say yes.

"What about school?" I asked.

"I've already told your principal what's going on. He said as long as you're willing to work extra hard when you get back to make up the work you've missed he's fine with it. You're one of the school's best students, Bells, you won't fall behind."

"It snows in Alaska, right?" I asked. "Like blizzards and ice."

"Eben'll take care of you," Charlie said.

"Eben will have just gotten married. He's not gonna want to take care of me. He'll have other things on his mind," I pointed out, but Charlie just smiled at me.

"Honey," he said, "he's thrilled that you're even considering coming up there. You're practically the only person coming. He and Stella can't leave either to go on a honeymoon, so they're going to wait until the thirty days are up and go after. Plus, they've got a guest room."

"You told him?" I asked, my voice raising a few octaves.

"Yep," Charlie said again.

"Dad!" I whined. But I stopped, pulling myself together. "Absolutely not."

"Bells," Charlie said.

"No," I repeated.

"I'll make you a deal," Charlie said. I eyed him suspiciously.

"What kind of deal?" I asked.

"If you go up there," he said, "I promise I'll never say another word to you or your mother about how depressive you've been. You can mope around the house all you want and I'll just tell Renee that everything's fine. And she'll believe me because I've never lied to her about you before."

I sighed. Renee had been calling a ridiculous amount of times lately trying to get me to talk to her about everything that had happened with he who shall not be named. I looked at Charlie and nodded. "Okay," I said. "But when I get back, no more threatening to make me leave Forks, no more trying to get me to go out with friends, no more encouraging me to give Mike Newton a chance. I mean, _Mike Newton_, really? What were you thinking?" I asked, shaking my head.

"Deal." Charlie smiled. I knew what he wanted. If he could get me out of Forks for a while, maybe I would come back the way I was before the Cullens left. Maybe I would forget some of the pain. I hoped that he could handle disappointment.

"So when do I leave?" I asked.

He pulled a plane ticket out of his shirt pocket. "Tomorrow morning."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Better pack some winter clothes," he said as I put my bowl in the sink. "It gets pretty cold up there."

I sighed. Tomorrow I would be leaving for what was starting to sound like a town even worse than Forks. _Snow_. I shuddered. _Ice_. I shuddered. _Thirty days of night_. "No, nothing could go wrong there," I muttered as I climbed the stairs. Looking back on it now, I really had no idea.


	2. Barrow, Alaska

_30 Days of Night_

Notes: Okay, so I went to IMDB to write down the names of the supplementary characters from _30 Days of Night_ and discovered that Josh Hartnett's character actually is named Eben. Apparently, I can't hear the difference between b's and v's because I've been thinking his name was Evan this whole time. At any rate, I went ahead and fixed that for the sake of consistency.

Chapter Two: Barrow, Alaska:

Oh yeah, Barrow was going to be so much worse than Forks. I could tell already and I hadn't even landed yet. Of course, the fact that I had to take an airplane that only sat two people should have clued me in to just how horrible this experience would be. The whole flight was like riding a roller coaster. Every little current of air jostled us around. Clinging to a vampire's back while he ran through the woods wasn't nearly so terrifying as this airplane. I thought I was going to lose it a couple of times. I don't really have that strong of a stomach to begin with. Fortunately, God must have been smiling on me. Or the Bonine I took before I got on the plane was doing its job.

I had to admit that Alaska was beautiful from the air. I had seen practically the entire state during the course of the flight up to Barrow. Passing by the ocean, over valleys of green trees, into the dusty stretches of wilderness covered by thick bands of snow, I'd had plenty of time to think. Though I hated to acknowledge that Charlie was right, I was starting to feel a little better now that I was free of the oppressively green, lush environment of Washington state. I could breathe again. Even though I hadn't seen him in a while, I was looking forward to spending some time with Eben. I didn't know many of my cousins. Renee's family was small and none of them had been in Phoenix. My grandparents were all dead. Charlie's family lived mostly in Oregon and Washington, but as I'd stopped coming to Forks once I convinced him to start spending our two weeks in California, I hadn't seen them either.

Really, I didn't know many people at all, not even my own family. I probably should have felt lonely, but I never did. I liked being by myself, so did Charlie. I could understand why Eben would want to get away from Seattle and go someplace where no one would bother him. Why he had to pick one of the coldest places in the United States though I'd never understand. The plane suddenly dropped and I felt my stomach shoot up into my mouth. Glancing out of the window, I saw the tiny airport outside of Barrow. It was composed of two runways and a hanger. A larger plane was sitting on one of the runways. I could see a line of people waiting to get on it. They looked like ants from so high up. I snorted to myself as a thought struck me. I was the only person actually trying to get into Barrow. Everyone else was trying to get out.

I honestly thought I was going to die when the plane landed. But somehow the pilot kept it on the icy runway. We didn't flip over, which I had been envisioning since the first wheel hit the ground and seemed to slide out from underneath us. As I stepped out of the plane, my legs shaking and my stomach still twisted in a nervous, nauseous knot, my first thought was that Charlie was going to owe me so much more than space when I got home. I grabbed my bag out of the back of the plane and thanked the pilot. Then I started for the hanger. The hanger was partitioned into two spaces. The first was the large warehouse where the planes waited. The second was the office where the passengers waited. The whole building smelled like a mechanic's shop.

The only person in the waiting area was a blonde women a little taller than myself. She was sitting on one of the plastic chairs, absently watching the fuzzy television in the corner of the room. She was wearing a red parka with a fur trimmed hood. An official state badge was pinned onto her arm and she wore a walkie talkie on her hip. Her hair was pulled back into a messy pony tail. As soon as she saw me, she smiled and stood up. "Hey there," she said in a friendly voice. "You must be Bella."

"That's me," I said, awkwardly clinging to my bag as I stood in the waiting room trying to figure out whether to shake her hand or hug her. She made the choice for me and gave my shoulders a quick squeeze before pulling away.

"I'm Stella. Welcome to Barrow, top of the world. Eben would have come to pick you up himself, but the duties of a Sheriff never cease," she explained with an exaggerated sigh.

I rolled my eyes. "I know all about that," I said and she laughed.

"Do you need help with your bag?" She asked as we started to move toward the door.

"I got it," I replied, even though it was a bit heavier than I was accustomed to handling. I had thirty days of winter clothes stuffed into it.

"Eben's pretty excited that you're here," she said, opening the door for me. The only car I saw on the lot outside was a truck, so I started walking toward it. "You're sort of our only guest."

I raised my eyebrow and looked back at her. "Really?" I asked.

"I don't have any family," she explained, "and Eben's parents didn't particularly want to come all the way up here. So….," she trailed off.

"Charlie would have come," I jumped in, suddenly feeling terrible for them. "But like you said, the duties of a Sheriff never cease."

"Yeah, he explained it all to Eben on the phone," Stella replied.

I frowned. I wondered how much he had explained. I threw my bag in the back of the truck and slid into the passenger's side while Stella jumped into the driver's seat. Looking over at Stella, I sized her up. She seemed like a fairly straight forward person, so I risked asking her, even though I knew it would probably be embarrassing to us both. "How much exactly did he tell you?" I asked.

She chuckled as she shoved the key into the ignition. The truck roared to life. Looking over at me, she said, "Charlie told Eben you were having some trouble in Forks."

"Trouble?" I asked.

She nodded, threw the truck into reverse and started backing out. "He thought some time away might do you some good."

"Did he tell you why I was having trouble?" I asked, my arm snaking around my midsection again. Stella shifted again and the truck shot forward.

"He said you were dating some guy," Stella explained. _Some guy_. That was definitely something my Dad would say. "And he left. So now you're having a hard time with it." I sat in silence for a while, watching the snow pass by the window in a blur. It didn't look like there were any real roads here in Barrow. Just paths made in the snow that had been hardened and compacted by truck tires. I could only imagine how traumatizing it would be to try to drive something like a Toyota Corolla here. "Bella?" She asked, looking over at me.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I get it, you know," Stella said. I looked at her in confusion and she elaborated. "People leave, they break up with you. And most times it doesn't matter. Yeah, it hurts, but you get over it. Time heals everything. But sometimes, you meet a person that just becomes a part of you. And if that person leaves, well, it's like he's taking half of you with him. You can't get over it. Time doesn't heal it. It stays with you and you just have to endure it because that's the only thing you can do."

I looked over at her in shock. No one had understood what I was going through, not Charlie, not Renee, none of my friends at school. But here I was, half a world away from home, and I had met the one person who seemed to truly get it. "Yeah," I said, though the word sounded stupid in my ears. "That's about it."

"If Eben left me, I'd be the same way," Stella said quietly. She turned left and I wondered how she knew where she was going. There were no road signs anywhere.

"So the wedding's tomorrow, huh?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood for both of our sakes. The hole in my chest was starting to burn around the edges again.

"Last day of sunlight," she said, smiling. She must have seen the slightly horror-stricken look on my face because she laughed heartily. "I know, you outsiders just don't get why we're so into our thirty days of night."

"Don't you miss the sun?" I asked, honestly curious.

She shrugged. "I suppose I'm always a little grateful to see it rise again at the end of the month. But there's something really peaceful about the darkness. The schools are closed and most of the businesses shut down. Everyone just stays indoors. It's this whole month where you get to recharge your batteries and not worry about anything."

"That actually doesn't sound so bad," I said, surprised at how appealing she had made thirty days without sunlight sound.

We were starting to get close to town. Every once in a while, we'd pass a house or two. The houses started to get closer together and the tires finally hit an actual road. We were on Main Street, which consisted of about twenty buildings. Barrow had to be the most depressing looking town I'd ever seen. The buildings were all purely functional, drab siding, gray wood. A couple of the houses had Christmas lights still up to try to spread a more festive atmosphere, but the lights just looked out of place. The center of town seemed to consist of the Diner, the only restaurant I'd seen, and the police station, in front of which we parked.

"Here we are," Stella said. "Eben and I have a little house just outside of town, but he wanted me to bring you here first to get you acquainted with Barrow." She hopped out of the truck and I followed. "So," she continued, waving at the buildings. "This is Barrow."

"I guess I'm acquainted," I joked. "How many people live here?"

"Five hundred and sixty-three," she said.

My eyes bulged out of my head. "That's it?" I asked.

"That's it," she confirmed. "It drops down to about one hundred and fifty-two during the thirty days."

"Yeah," I said, "I saw a bunch of people getting on an airplane back at the airport."

She shrugged. "Not everyone can stand thirty days of darkness." She opened the station door for me and I stepped inside. The station was tiny, just four desks cluttered together in the center of the room, and two cells on the back wall. Some posters were hanging on the walls – Click It or Ticket and Friends Never Let Friends Drive Drunk. That last poster caused a new flash of pain to shoot through me. I honestly had no idea how I remained standing. An older woman was sitting at one of the desks, typing something on an ancient looking computer. I managed to pull myself together before she noticed. Stella must have seen the pain shoot across my face because she had laid a steadying hand on my back. "Helen," Stella said, walking up to her. "This is Eben's cousin Bella. She came in for the wedding."

"Ah," Helen said, looking up at me and smiling. "Good to meet you, dear."

"You too," I said.

"Where is Eben?" Stella asked.

"He and Billy are checking out a fire on the north ridge," Helen said. "He should be back soon."

"Okay," Stella replied. "We'll wait."

I had a feeling that I would be spending a lot of time in this station. While we waited, Stella and I played a few hands of rummy and talked. I hadn't really been expecting much when I came up here, but I found that I truly enjoyed Stella's company. She was relaxed, easy to talk with, and didn't seem to care that sometimes I would zone out for minutes on end, clutching my stomach. Finally, we heard voices approaching and Eben and Billy walked through the front door. I recognized Eben right away, even though I hadn't seen him in years. His dark hair was a little longer than I remembered, hanging down in his eyes when he brushed his hood off of his head. He was tall and he smiled the same crinkly-eyed smile that Charlie was known for when he saw Stella and me sitting at his desk.

"Bella," he said, moving over to us. "It's great to see you again. I'm so glad you could make it up here." I stood up and he pulled me into a tight hug. His jacket was freezing, but the human contact felt good. Snowflakes sat on his shoulders and I brushed them off.

"You couldn't have moved to Florida or something?" I mumbled playfully and he laughed.

"Way too crowded," he said. "Did you have a good flight?"

"Yeah," I shrugged, "for the most part."

"Bumpy, huh?" He asked.

I nodded sheepishly. "There may have been a couple times I thought we were actually going down."

He laughed a deep laugh and gave Stella a quick kiss. "I think the pilots do that just to freak out the tourists."

"What was with the fire on the north ridge?" Stella asked, diverting his attention for a moment. I took the opportunity to observe them. I finally noticed that the badge on Stella's jacket read "Fire Marshall" and I understood why the fire had captivated her attention. They stood close to each other, leaning toward each other as they spoke. I could see the warmth in Eben's eyes when he looked at her. The pain in my chest tripled, but I was happy for them. Just because I would never find that kind of love again didn't mean I had to begrudge it in other people.

"I don't know," he said, "someone stole a bunch of satellite phones and burned them."

"Satellite phones?" Stella asked. "Why would they burn them? I can understand stealing them to sell, but why destroy them?"

"Billy thought it might have been some kids playing a prank before the thirty days," Eben explained.

"But you don't think so?" Stella asked, reading the meaning between his words.

"Kids would've left a note. A fuck you to their parents, or the world, or whatever. I don't know," he sighed. "It doesn't matter," he brightened. "Soon as this day ends, we're off for the weekend and Billy'll just have to handle whatever comes up." Stella and Eben weren't taking their honeymoon right after the wedding. They were going to wait until after the thirty days and then fly to San Francisco. I frowned, wondering exactly where I was going to be staying on their wedding night.

As if reading my mind, Eben turned to me and said, "Why don't we take your stuff to our house. You'll be staying in our guest room for most of the time, but Helen was more than happy to take you in for our wedding night."

"Good," I said. "You guys are great and everything, but there are some things I really don't want to see."

They laughed and we went back out to Stella's truck. As we drove to their house, I watched the sun setting over the snowy ridge. Tomorrow would be the last time I saw the sunset in thirty days. I didn't know why, but my stomach dropped at the thought. I didn't care about not seeing the sun. I barely saw it in Forks anyway. But a slow dread was spreading through me. I tried to shake it away, I tried to think of something else. But I couldn't. For a brief, panicky moment, the thought occurred to me that I would never see the sun again.


	3. The Last Day of Sun

_30 Days of Night_

Chapter 3: The Last Day of Sun:

I tried to keep a positive attitude during the wedding. After all, this was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives and they didn't need to look out into the meager audience and see my sour face. So I tried to smile. And I tried not to look pained while I smiled. That was a little harder to accomplish. We were all standing on a ridge overlooking a snowy expanse. That wasn't anything new. I'd come to find in my twenty-four hours here that the only scenery you'd ever really see was one snowy expanse after another. However, I did have to admit that there was something breathtaking about the sun swiftly dropping down in the sky. I don't know if it was because the sun always seemed to look sickly here in Barrow until it set or because I knew that it was going to be the last I would see of it for thirty days, but it looked so fiery red and beautiful now I didn't want to see it go.

Of course, it was freezing outside, so we were all wearing parkas zipped up to our necks, even Stella. This wedding wasn't really a dress and suit type of affair and the good folk of Barrow weren't really dress and suit types of people anyway. Billy was acting both as Eben's best man and the preacher. Apparently, he was licensed to perform weddings. Or maybe he wasn't, no one in Barrow really did things the "proper" way anyway. Lucy, from the diner, was Stella's maid of honor. There had been some talk about me performing that role, but I quickly squashed the idea. There were only twenty or so people in attendance, but the thought of standing up in front of them was enough to make me break out into a feverish sweat. Stella seemed to understand and convinced Eben to drop it. As the sun was about to go down, they started their vows. All of that talk of _forever_ and _love_ was starting to make me nauseous.

There was a time, not long ago, that I had been ready to give up my mortal life for the man I loved. I had been willing to be trapped forever in the body of an eighteen year old, willing to never have children and never get to see my family again. I would have given up everything for _him. _But I guess I was just the human toy that wore out too soon. He didn't want me, especially not for forever. I should have known when we danced together at the prom and he refused to change me that his refusal wasn't just because he didn't want to lose control and kill me. I should have known that he didn't want me around forever. He didn't love me like that. Whatever I had been to him, it was just some fleeting, passing phase in his ever long existence. I was just Bella Swan, plain, ordinary Bella Swan, and that would never change. My forever had come and gone.

The vows were done and I had zoned out for the whole thing. It wasn't until Eben leaned in to kiss Stella and everyone started clapping that I really snapped back into reality. I clapped weakly along side of them. A line was forming to greet and congratulate them. Billy had been ignoring his flashing walkie talkie the whole time and he moved away to answer. As Eben and Stella got closer to me, I tried to work up some enthusiasm. But Eben squashed me in a hug before I could say anything and my sentiment of "congratulations" was sort of muffled into "lations." I think he knew what I meant. Before I could say anything else to him, Billy was pulling him away with a concerned expression on his face. Stella took his place, giving me a less bone crushing hug.

"I'm so glad you could be here with us," she whispered in my ear.

"Me too," I said and I sincerely meant it. So far, despite the dreary atmosphere and depressing lack of anything to do in Barrow, I was having a good time hanging out with Stella and Eben. Already, we were closer and, already, we had all gotten used to each other living together in their tiny house. We were all low maintenance people, so that helped. When Stella released me, she glanced back at Eben, who was still looking at Billy. He caught her eye and flashed her an apologetic smile. She sighed a little, but smiled back. "The duties of a Sheriff?" I asked.

"I guess something happened that can't wait," she said and shrugged. She continued down the line to greet the rest of the guests without Eben and I wandered over to where Helen was waiting to take me back to the station with her. We were going to finish out her shift there before heading to the diner for dinner and then back to her house in town. I was staying with her for Stella and Eben's wedding night. I had a change of clothes in her truck. Actually, in a lot of ways, living in Barrow was much like living in Forks. I didn't get out much as it was in Forks and I got out much less here. But every small town has a diner and, in Barrow, my dad had been replaced as my companion by Eben and Stella or Helen. At least in Barrow I didn't have to go to work and endure Mike's concerned, pitying, and sometimes still flirtatious glances.

The guests were starting to disperse. The sun was almost totally gone. I was hanging out with Helen and Stella by the older woman's truck. Finally, Eben made his way over to us. "What's going on?" Stella asked.

"Been some troubles in town," Eben said. He tried to sound casual about it, but both Stella and I knew he was worried. Stella knew because she had been living with him for so long and I knew because he had the same way of lying that my Dad did. "Let's get going."

I could tell that Stella was working up to something. Finally, she laid a hand on his arm, looked at him, and said, "You want to go check it out, don't you?"

"I don't have to. That's what Billy's for," Eben tried to explain. But we all knew that Stella was right.

"Eben," she said, smiling at him, "it's okay. We have all night. If you need to go check something out, I don't mind. I'll just go back to the station and wait until you get there."

Eben sighed. "You're sure you don't mind?" He asked, sensing that he was walking into a trap. But Stella wasn't that kind of woman.

"I really don't mind," she insisted.

"Don't worry," I chimed in, "I'll keep her company."

"See?" Stella said.

"Okay," Eben agreed. "Can you catch a ride with Helen and Bella? I want to ride straight over to John Riis's place."

"What happened there?" Stella asked, concerned. Everyone knew everyone else in this town.

"Not sure yet," Eben was hedging. "But I'll let you know." Stella seemed to accept that. "Billy's heading to another call out at the Utilidor, otherwise he would have dealt with John."

"Really," Stella said, laughing, pushing him toward his truck, "it's okay. Go."

"I love you," Eben said, kissing her quickly.

"Love you too," she said as he climbed into his truck. He waved at us in the rearview mirror and sped off.

Stella, Helen, and I took one last look at the west, where the sun was now officially gone, and climbed into Helen's truck. It wasn't as old as mine, but it was much slower. I wondered if we would ever make it back into town. As we ambled on, the three of us squished together in the front cab, I saw the "Welcome to Barrow" sign. The population number had been switched down to one hundred and fifty-three. That extra person was me. We got to the station and busied ourselves as best we could. After about an hour, the station got a call about a disturbance at the diner. Helen tried to send it to Billy, but he was still engaged at the Utilidor and Eben wound up taking it. We watched out the window for his truck and finally saw it park in front of the diner.

He got out looking very disturbed and I wondered what had happened up to John Riis's place. He looked back at the station, saw us, and motioned for Stella. "Wait here," Stella said. I agreed, not wanting to interfere, and also because I could see everything happening in the diner through the front plate glass window. Lucy, now back at work, was standing behind the counter talking to a greasy looking man in a dirty long sleeved, white shirt. Her eyes looked frightened, but she was doing a good job of hiding it on the rest of her face. Eben went in the front door and Stella went over to the side door. The man grabbed Lucy's arm and Eben walked into the diner. I could see everyone tense up, even from across the street. Eben said something and Lucy wrenched her arm free. I smiled a little; I had seen my Dad do the same thing that Eben was doing now. He was trying to size up the guy, so he was talking to him like nothing was wrong. He sat down at the counter next to him, made some small talk with Lucy, and then turned to him. I guess Eben assumed that he wasn't a threat because he stood up, clapped the guy on the shoulder and said something. But the guy jumped to his feet, getting in Eben's face, even though he was clearly a foot shorter.

Eben didn't seem distressed and I wondered why, until I noticed that Stella had entered through the side door with her gun drawn. I hadn't actually noticed that she wore a gun. I didn't know that fire marshals were allowed to carry firearms. Only in Barrow. At any rate, the guy relaxed somewhat when she pressed it to the back of his head. Eben took him down and they started dragging him over to the station. "They're bringing someone over," I said to Helen. She joined me at the window.

"That's odd," she commented.

"What?" I asked.

"I don't know him," she said. By this point, Eben, Stella, and their prisoner were walking in the station door. Billy was walking in behind them. None of them looked particularly happy. With the stranger locked away in one of the cells, we all sat around the desks looking at each other for a few minutes. I knew that something was very wrong by the looks on their faces, but I stayed quiet.

Finally, Billy spoke. "Someone trashed Wilson's helicopter. Ripped out the throttle, threw it all into the trash compactor."

Eben nodded slowly. "Someone killed all of John Riis's dogs," he added. I sucked in a breath.

"Jesus," Stella murmured. "All of them?"

"All of them," Eben nodded. "And it was done recently."

"You think by that guy back there?" Helen asked, nodding discreetly to the prisoner.

Eben looked hard at him. "I don't know," he said. "Call up Point Hope, Wainwright," he said to Helen, "see if they're having any troubles too."

"What's your name, fella?" Billy called back to the stranger as he moved over to the computer. "Let's see if you've got any warrants."

"Is this normal? Do people freak out sometimes on the last day of sun?" I whispered over to Stella.

She shook her head. "You get pranks, like the phones yesterday. But nothing like this, nothing so…malicious," she said.

"Huh," Helen said, hitting a few buttons on the phone, "phone's dead."

"So's the computer," Billy added in frustration. The stranger started laughing.

I glanced back at him, getting another one of those horrible feelings in my stomach like something very bad was about to happen. The stranger caught my eye and winked at me. I looked away. "So sweet," he said, his drawl very slow. He was still looking at me. "So helpless against what is coming." His words struck a strange cord in me.

Something must have shown in my face because Stella leaned over and said, "Don't worry, he's just trying to get our blood up."

"I'm gonna go check with Gus," Eben announced. "See if he can't tell me what's going on with the phones and computer."

That word stuck in my mind. _Sweet_. I felt like I already knew what was happening, I just couldn't place my finger on it. I tried to sift through the evidence. The phones were down. The satellite phones were all burned. The computer was down. "No communication," I murmured.

"What?" Stella asked, glancing over at me. Eben stopped at the door and looked back at me too.

I glanced up, blushing to find that everyone, even the stranger, was staring at me. "Um," I said, flustered, "I was just thinking that all the satellite phones were burned yesterday and the rest of the phones are dead now, even the computer. We don't really have any way of communicating with the outside world." They all considered what I had just said. Then something else occurred to me. "And it's night now," I motioned out the window, "the roads leaving town aren't safe to drive. The helicopter's been trashed. The planes are all gone. And the sled dogs are dead," I listed. "No transportation."

The stranger started chuckling again and the sound made me shiver. "Board the windows," he said, "Try to hide. They're coming and, this time, they'll take me with them to honor me for all that I've done."

We all looked back at him. He was smiling, his mouth full of rotting teeth. "They?" Eben asked, stepping closer to him. "Who are they?"

But the stranger wouldn't say anything else. An uneasy feeling came over me, like I was being watched. I turned back to the window, but there was nothing there. And then the lights went out. We all jumped. The stranger just laughed again. "Better go check with Gus," Eben said, staring up at the now dead lights. "Billy," he turned to his partner.

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind walking around town, check to make sure everything's alright, that everyone's keeping order?" He asked. "Let 'em know we're working to get the power and phones back up."

"Sure thing," Billy said and he was out the door.

Eben smiled back at us. "You'll be okay here with him?" He asked, nodding back to the stranger.

"Why not?" Stella asked. "He's just some nut trying to get a rise out of us."

Eben looked at me and I nodded, although I wasn't so sure about Stella's assessment of the stranger. He seemed to know exactly what was going on. I felt like if my brain hadn't been dulled in a constant cloud of pain for the past three months, I might have been able to figure out what it was that was bothering me about the whole situation. There was just something about that word, _Sweet_. Eben was gone and we were sitting in the station alone again. Stella had him on the walkie talkie. Everything was quiet outside. Some generators had kicked on and, when I looked out the window, I could see some lights in the town.

We waited for what seemed like forever until Eben's voice crackled through the walkie talkie. He sounded panicked. Stella and I both looked at each other, surprised. "Stella!" He yelled. "Stella! Come in!"

"I'm right here," she said back, as calmly as she could, though Eben's panic was catching. He was normally so level headed. "What's wrong?"

"Bella was right," he said. I could hear his truck door slam through the walkie talkie. Then his tires squealed as he backed way too fast away from the cell tower in the snow. "We're being cut off!"

"Sweet," I murmured, too low for the others to hear. "Like blood." I suddenly realized why that had sounded so familiar. My blood had smelled sweet to Edward. It smelled sweet to all of them, to every vampire. Then the other words clicked together. _Helpless_. _Cut off_. I looked over at the stranger, knowledge glinting in my eyes, and he frowned. No one was supposed to know what was happening. _They_ would come for him when they had ravaged the town. He wanted to be like them. But _I_ did know what was happening. "Oh God," I said, my eyes wide with fear. I clamped a hand over my mouth. I really thought I was going to throw up. _This cannot be happening_. Stella looked over at me.

"What is it?" She asked, even more concerned about my sudden outburst than Eben's panicky voice.

But I couldn't say the word, not this time. I could only think it. _Vampires_.


	4. The First Night

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to whoever that belongs to.

Chapter Four: The First Night:

_Vampires_. I felt so incredibly stupid for even thinking the word because I knew how ridiculous I was being. I was just jumping to conclusions and, my conclusion that vampires were attacking Barrow, was the product of an overtaxed, emotionally drained, and paranoid brain. After all, I had spent the greater part of the last nine months obsessing over vampires and a good six months of that hanging out with them, so naturally vampires would be the first conclusion that my mind would jump to. Any sane person would have come up with some other explanation first and there were plenty to go around, like rabid animals that had chewed through the phone lines…and the helicopter…and the power lines…and the sled dogs.

So maybe rabid animals weren't the best explanation. A wandering gang of thieves, or one really crazy guy sick of all of the snow, or even multiple crazy guys all hopped on PCP had to be better explanations than vampires. I just had to be wrong, because if I wasn't….well, we were pretty much all dead and I didn't know if I could actually see a vampire again without melting into a puddle of miserable, depressed goo. Stella was looking at me like I was crazy and Helen had a similar look on her face. I realized that I was still clamping my mouth shut with my hand and that my eyes were so wide they were about to pop out of my skull. I had to relax, calm down, because spouting out ridiculous theories would only make everything worse. In all likelihood, somebody had just snapped because the sun was gone and I would feel even more stupid than I already did for even thinking of vampires.

I tried to convince myself of that as I slowly lowered my hand and tried to relax my face, without much luck. "What is it?" Stella pressed, lightly touching my arm.

Her touch was reassuring, and I could feel the concern behind it, but all I had to do was look at that stranger and I knew I was right. He was staring at me, openly staring at me, not even trying to hide it now. When I locked eyes with the stranger, I shuddered. His eyes were so dull and lifeless, so sick with a longing that I couldn't quite place, and every time his eyes raked over my body I felt like he was violating me. But the worst part was that his eyes were shining like he had some piece of incriminating evidence on me that he was about to reveal. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that he really did because he knew that I knew about vampires and he also knew that I wasn't supposed to know. No human was ever supposed to know about the existence of vampires. That vampires had simply become the stuff of myths and legends was a coordinated effort on the part of every vampire in the world to keep humans, their only food source, from ever finding out what exactly was hunting them in the night. No vampire wanted the return of the days when humans gathered in large groups to hunt down demons, days like Carlisle had been born into.

A shot of sadness pierced me when I thought of the beautiful, blonde haired doctor – the man who could have been my second father. Losing E…_him_ had been hard enough, but losing the whole Cullen family, was absolutely devastating. The thoughts of what could have been were the things that truly agonized me and I would wake up screaming from nightmares of simply being with them, laughing with them, talking with them, just sitting in a car with Alice, my warm shoulder touching her cold shoulder. I shook away those thoughts because now was so not the time to start drowning in memories. I couldn't be numb right now, I couldn't be in so much pain that I felt nothing. I had to stay strong because I truly did know what was coming and it would be horrible.

"Bella," Stella tried again. But before I could answer, Eben stormed through the station door, which slammed against the wall. I jumped, the sound enough to startle me, but the look on his face was what really sent my heart beating into overdrive. Eben's eyes were wild and terrified, searching for something that he couldn't seem to find, and I wondered what had happened when he went to see Gus. I knew that whatever happened hadn't been good by the way he was gripping the walkie talkie fiercely with one hand and his gun with the other. His finger twitching on the gun bothered me and I wanted nothing more than to comfort him in some way, though I didn't really know how. Eben's fear only seemed to magnify my own and I suddenly felt like I needed to be out of that room. The stranger was still staring at me and, when Eben saw where he was looking, it seemed to make him even more angry than he already was and he had been fuming to begin with. He was standing in the middle of the room, practically panting, unable to figure out what to do next. "Eben," Stella said, shifting her focus. "Where's your inhaler?"

Her words seemed to bring him out of his trance and he patted the front of his jacket until he found it. Unzipping his jacket part of the way, he reached into the inside pocket and pulled it out, while Stella led him over to a chair. He sucked in several breaths and his eyes met mine as though he had been searching for me all along, as though he had somehow known that I would be the one to answer his questions. I saw a fear so deep in his eyes that I knew in that moment I had been right. _Vampires_. Eben had seen something that he didn't know how to explain, something so truly horrific and terrifying that he couldn't even speak. He couldn't find the words to describe how shattered his world was. "What did you see?" I asked softly, so softly I thought that no one had heard me until Eben put the inhaler down and closed his eyes.

"Gus…," he said, trailing off.

"What about Gus?" I asked.

"Bella," Stella warned, looking back at me in concern. Clearly, she thought that Eben shouldn't be telling me what he was about to tell me, but whether she thought I should be kept in the dark because she thought it would be too much for me to hear or because it would be too much for Eben to say, I wasn't sure.

"It's okay," Eben said. "She needs to hear this. You all do."

"What happened?" Stella asked, just as worried about her new husband's mental condition as I was.

"I saw Gus," Eben explained slowly. He shifted his eyes so that he was staring at the stranger, who had finally torn his gaze away from my face to look back at him. I thought he looked smug, but I couldn't be sure. The straggly hair hanging in his eyes blocked whatever expression he really had on his dirty face. I looked at him, really looked at him, and realized that he probably had been a rather handsome man at some point in his life, but that something had happened to him to take away whatever goodness or innocence had once been in him. He looked something like the drug addicts I had seen in health class documentaries from the way he was always fidgeting, twisting his hands around, and the way his eyes were darting around like he was expecting to see someone who wasn't really there. "Someone…no, something, tore him apart. Someone," he said, going back to that word, clinging to it because the other option – something – was not something he wanted to think about. "It had to be someone."

"It could have been an animal," Stella suggested, though her voice wavered.

"No," Eben shook his head slowly. "It really couldn't have been."

"Why not, Eben?" I asked, leaning forward in my seat. I needed something, some clue to tell me for sure that I was right because, if I was, we needed to hide – hide somewhere so remote, so obscure, that no vampire would ever think to search for us there. We couldn't fight and we couldn't run; James had made me so aware of that. All we could do was hide and hope the smell of our blood didn't give us away.

"Someone cut off his head," Eben said dully, his eyes assuming a blank expression. He was shutting down, his brain wasn't able to process the things he'd seen. "And shoved it onto a stake in the ground."

Stella rocked back in her seat, sucking in a sharp inhalation, as Helen choked back a cry and covered her tear filled eyes. I didn't know Gus and, while I felt bad that he was dead, I didn't have any emotional reaction to his death. I think my staid expression shocked Eben. "Was there a lot of blood?" I asked and I knew how they would react to that question before they did. Between Helen scoffing at me, Stella glaring over at me, and Eben staring at me in shock, I knew I might have just lost them all. "Was there a lot blood?" I asked again, more forcefully, pressing my question now that they all _really_ thought I was nuts.

Eben thought for a moment, his brow furrowed. "No," he said and I had to give him credit for answering me at all. "Well, I mean there was some blood on the ground. It was soaked into the snow. But…well, given how _messed up_ his body was and the fact that his head was…you know, removed…well, no, there wasn't a whole lot of blood."

Vampires had attacked Gus and drank his blood before ripping his head off and mangling his body. But why would they do that? Perhaps because they didn't want the whole freakin' town of Barrow to change. No, they just wanted to kill us so that no one would know that they had been here. The vampires needed to keep their cover, not only to protect their kind, but also to protect themselves from the Volturi, so they had cut us off from everyone else so we couldn't warn anyone, we couldn't reach out to try to tell someone that vampires were attacking our town. And suddenly it was _our_ town. I felt a deep, primal need to protect the people around me, especially Eben and Stella. With Charlie all the way down in Forks, a place I suddenly wondered if I would ever see again, and no one else in Barrow that I even remotely knew, Eben and Stella were the only family I had left. I probably should have been working a little harder to keep up the filter on my mouth, but I couldn't stop the next words from escaping my lips. "We're all gonna die."

The stranger started laughing so hard I thought he was going to cry. "Well, well," he said, his nasally voice booming out in the now deathly silent police station. It had that same quality as nails on a chalkboard and I found myself cringing every time he spoke. "Leave it to the little girl to figure it all out. 'Cuz you know, now don't you? You know." He was staring at me again and so was everyone else. I felt a deep blush reddening my cheeks and neck. I hated being the center of attention. The stranger licked his dry, chapped lips and something like lust popped into his eyes for a moment. I had thought that his gaze was violating before, but that gaze was nothing compared to the way his lips curled up and his tongue darted out as though he was trying to taste my breath on the air. "Oh yeah, darling, you know and you're right too. You're all going to die. But I'll make sure to tell them when they come for me to take extra care of you," he said, looking right at me. "I'll bet you taste sweeter than the rest of them. I'd like to taste you now." He chuckled and Eben jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over. He stalked back to the cell, opened the door, and slammed the man into the wall before any of us could say anything.

"You shut your fucking mouth, you hear me, asshole!" He yelled. He still had his gun in his hand. Stella and I were cringing, sitting on the edges of our seats, waiting with dread for the gun to go off. I couldn't take much more of this, the anxiety in the room was suffocating. I felt like I was trying to breathe underwater and, despite the chilly temperature inside of the station, a sheen of sweat covered my body.

"Eben!" Stella called, trying to calm him down.

"That's my cousin you're talking about," he fumed. "You say any kind of shit like that to her again and I'll fucking kill you. You hear me?" He shoved the gun in the stranger's face, but that only seemed to amuse him more.  
"You think you're so tough now," the stranger shot back. "With your gun? Just wait. You're gun won't help you soon."

"Shut up!" Eben screamed. The stranger smiled, baring his rotting teeth, and spit into Eben's face. I had to look away at that point. The yellow spit running down Eben's chin was enough to make me want to vomit. When the stranger opened his mouth and laughed, a horrible smell filled the room, a smell very much like the smell of a dead animal.

"Oh no," I muttered, when Eben went rigid. This was not going to be pleasant. Stella jumped up, racing over to the cell to try to stop him, but Eben was too quick. Pressing the gun to the other man's shoulder, he pulled the trigger. Blood splattered against the back wall and my stomach started flopping around. "No, no, no, no, no," I murmured, looking away. I dropped my head between my knees and started rocking back and forth to try to calm my stomach, but I could practically feel the vomit inching up in my throat. Helen moved over to me and started rubbing soothing circles on my back. Somewhere, in the background, Stella was trying to talk Eben down from shooting him again. I didn't really care what she was saying, the smell of the blood in the room had pretty much overloaded my brain functions. I could hear the stranger was wailing and that gave me a little bit of satisfaction, though I knew it was wrong to wish pain on another living creature. He was crying so hard, his voice started to sound like screeching metal and it hurt my ears.

"It's alright," Helen said in my ear. "It's alright. Everyone's fine. Eben just lost his temper."

"It's not that," I groaned, my voice muffled. "Blood makes me sick."

"Oh," Helen said, "well, honey, just don't look at it." I heard some shuffling noises and the stranger started pleading with Eben. I peaked at them out of the corner of my eye, regretting it immediately when I saw that Eben had moved the stranger to the cell door, yanked his arms up over his head, and handcuffed him to the bars. Stella had managed to get the gun away from Eben, which was good, but there was still blood everywhere. It smelled like salt and rust. I was so going to throw up.

"Trashcan!" I urged. Helen slid it over to me and I unloaded my lunch into the metal can.

"You're alright," Helen said.

"Who did that to Gus?" Eben asked, but his voice was wild with emotion. "Who? Who are they? Who are you? What the fuck is happening in my town?"

"Ask her," the stranger said, foaming at the mouth. I felt all eyes on me again.

"Shit," I heard Stella say when she saw me doubled over the trashcan. She and Eben both abandoned the man handcuffed to the cell door and moved over to me.

"I'm sorry," Eben was saying over and over again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to see that."

I waved away his apologies. "It's okay," I said weakly. "It's just the blood."

"Apparently, it makes her sick," Helen explained grimly.

"Bella," Eben said, kneeling down in front of me. He moved the trashcan and lifted my chin with his finger so that I was looking into his face. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. I took a deep breath, accepted the breath mint Stella offered me, and sat back in my chair. "I'm fine."

"What's he talking about?" Stella asked.

"I'm not sure I want to tell you," I mumbled, looking away.

"Why's that?" Eben asked.

"Because you won't believe me," I stated.

"Try me," Eben said.

I sat looking at them for a long moment. All three of them were huddled around me and they were all as terrified as I was. "It's not…people doing this," I explained, uncertain how much I really wanted to say at this point, though I knew that I had to tell them everything. I had to make them understand, even though I knew they wouldn't because, even after everything Eben had seen, this was still something that he would not want to accept.

"Not people?" Stella asked hesitantly.

I took a deep breath, knowing that I had to say it, even though I would confirm for all of them that something in me had snapped. Even though I was deliriously scared, I found myself wanting to laugh, which was an entirely irrational reaction. Of course, everything about this situation was irrational and I didn't miss the irony in the fact that the Cullens had left me to keep me safe and here I was getting myself into probably one of the most dangerous situations of my life. Maybe if I said it, and they didn't believe me, I would get lucky and they would just think that seeing the blood had screwed with my mind. "It's vampires." Oh yeah, this was going well. The only person who reacted was the stranger. He nodded slowly, but I was the only one who could see him. Everyone else just stared at me…again, with their mouths open. "I know that sounds crazy."

"Yeah," Eben nodded. "It does."

"It's not," I insisted. Silence again. Oh boy.

"You really expect us to believe that vampires are attacking our town?" Stella asked, incredulous.

"Did you get into Helen's stash?" Eben suddenly asked.

"What stash?" I asked.

Helen moved over to one of the desk drawers, opened it, and lifted out a small bag of pot. I actually chuckled. I hadn't chuckled in a while and it sounded strange to my ears. It must have sounded a little anguished too because Eben and Stella looked back at me concerned. "Well?" Eben asked.

"Seriously?" I questioned. "You think I've been smoking pot? And for that matter, you do realize that one of your employees is hiding pot _in the police station_," I emphasized.

"Well…vampires…," Eben trailed off. "Even you said it sounded crazy."

"I haven't been smoking pot," I said insistently. "The only time I've ever used any chemical substance when I shouldn't have was one time…._one time_…that I took some cold medicine to help me fall asleep," I said, trying to defend myself. Stella tried to choke back a laugh at how much of a goody goody I was, but she couldn't. "You don't believe me?" I sighed.

"Not really," Eben said. "Sorry, kiddo," he added. "What happened to Gus was messed up, but I don't believe that vampires did it."

"Okay then," I looked down at the scar on my hand and held it up for them to see. "What do you think this is?"

They stared at it for a little while. The scar obviously was a bite mark and it obviously _was not_ from a dog. The curve of the teeth marks fit perfectly with a human jaw. Stella traced the pale, cold skin with her fingers and shivered a little. "Why would someone bite you?" she asked.

"A _vampire_ bit me," I said, almost yelling at them at this point. "And now I have this scar." I had to make them understand somehow. I knew their reactions to what I was saying were perfectly acceptable, after all, I had always been the one who reacted improperly to strange things. Still, I needed for them to understand because I had the feeling that we didn't have much time left. Yet, I couldn't figure out what to say that would really get their attention. To make matters worse, I was really starting to feel light headed from the smell of the blood and having all of my thoughts swimming together wasn't helping my coherency at all.

"Okay, that's it," Eben sit, getting to his feet suddenly. "I have a solution to this. We're gonna go out there and drive around for a little while and you'll see that no one's attacking this town, especially not vampires. This is just some weird thing. Some nutcase who that asshole back there knows," he said, motioning to the stranger, "fucking around with us."

"I really don't think that's a good idea," I said, shaking my head vehemently. "We should _not_ go out there."

"Bella," Stella argued. "Really, everything's going to be fine."

"Look, Billy's out there trying to keep everyone calm," Eben said. "I need to go out there anyway and explain that we're working to get this sorted out. Now, Stella, Billy, and I are the only authorities in this town right now. We all need to be seen so people don't start panicking and I'm _not_ leaving you here with that guy," he said, pointing back to the stranger again, "just so he can fuck with your head."

"In other words, get in the truck, Bella," Stella said, smiling at me like I was a mental patient as she led me out the door by the elbow. I was starting to feel like a mental patient, or like everyone around me was deaf and I was the only person who could speak. I realized then that no matter what I said, no matter what I did, they wouldn't believe me, not until they saw red eyes staring at them in the dark. However, I was fairly certain that if we ever did see those red eyes, they would be the last thing that any of us would ever see.

"Hold down the fort, Helen," Eben called back to her. "And if he starts talking shit again just taser him."

So now I was in the truck, sandwiched in between Eben and Stella, as we drove out to the south ridge. We were going to start there, knocking on doors and letting the residents know that we were on top of the power outage and that things would be back to normal soon. Not to worry, everything was fine. It was crazy. Everything was not fine and I was the only person who could see that, but Eben and Stella had made it their personal mission to prove to me that the chaos in town was the work of one person – one _human_ person.

"Stop the truck," Eben suddenly said.

"What?" Stella asked.

"Stop the fucking truck," he yelled. We all braced ourselves as Stella slammed on the brakes. The seat belt stopped me from lurching forward onto the dash, but it didn't stop my heart from hammering so hard in my chest that I actually thought my ribs might break. "I thought I saw something ahead in the road." I had such a horrible feeling about this, but I couldn't seem to speak.

Eben and Stella got out of the truck and I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply for several moments, before I followed them. Getting out of the truck was such a bad idea. Why on earth was I getting out of the truck? Why had they gotten out of the truck? So there was something in the road. Who cares? That truck could roll over a tree and it would feel like rolling over a pebble, but here they were standing in the road, consulting something. Stella had binoculars to her eyes, but I didn't need them. It wasn't like I had amazing vision or anything; no, I could just see the most important thing, the only thing really that I needed to see - red eyes. Red eyes in the darkness.

"Get in the truck," I said as calmly as I could, backing up until my shoulders hit the hood. I was at the door in a second.

"What?" Stella asked just before she zeroed in on the eyes. The binoculars fell out of her hands into the snow and Eben looked over at her, confused. "Get in the fucking truck," she said breathlessly. The next thing I knew, they were in the truck and I was struggling in vain to engage my seat belt, but I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. It was all too real. It was one thing to _think_ that vampires were attacking the town, one thing to contemplate it as I sat in the warm police station surrounded by people I was beginning to love, but it was another thing entirely to be out in the snow and cold in the middle of nowhere at night with nothing to help us but the vain hope that the truck could reverse fast enough to outrun a vampire. I scoffed. Yeah, likely.

The truck was in reverse by the time I finally got my seatbelt hooked. We were speeding along, going backwards, but I couldn't see anything out of the windows, just blackness rolling by way too fast. I looked over at Stella and her mouth was set in a hard line. "Let me ask you a question," she said and then something hit the roof. I screamed, Stella screamed, and Eben pulled out his gun, which I knew would do absolutely no good. A deep dread pervaded me, weighing me down, and I couldn't believe that I was going to die in a truck in Barrow, Alaska.

"Oh shit, oh shit," Stella was chanting out loud while I was mentally chanting practically the same thing. The thing on top of the truck started pounding on it, leaving massive dents in the roof. Eben's window shattered, glass flying into the cab. Some of it flew into my face and I closed my eyes, sliding down in my seat as the roof started caving in on top of me. When Eben started shooting, I heard the distinctive high pitched whine of a vampire in pain. I opened my eyes in shock, staring above me at the stars that I could see through the mangled roof. The vampire was just a shadow, a shadow with two horribly bright eyes. He hit the roof one more time and then his hand was in the cab, right above my head.

I've never been the type of person to curse, even when James was torturing me in the ballet studio, but this was too much. "Holy shit!" I yelled as the vampire reached desperately down for me. The dread I had been feeling was quickly replaced by an overwhelming desire to live and I started kicking wildly, trying to scramble away from that hand straining for my hair. Eben shot the vampire's hand and he yanked it back through the roof. One more shot and the vampire flew off the back of the truck, landing in the snow. Stella gunned the engine and, as we drove away, all three of us staring in the rearview mirror, we saw the vampire stand up and disappear into the blackness.

"What. Was. That?" Stella screamed.

Eben took a hit from his inhaler. "Red eyes. Do vampires have red eyes?"

"Yes," I answered breathlessly.

"Vampires," Eben said. "I shot that thing like five times and it got up and ran away."

"It jumped on a speeding truck from out of nowhere and beat the shit out of the roof," Stella added in disbelief.

"Like I said…vampires," I confirmed, feeling a little annoyed that they hadn't listened to me the first time.

"So what do we do?" Eben asked, looking over at me. Stella glanced in my direction as well. We were speeding back toward town…back toward _them_.

I tried to sound as confident as I could, but my voice came out a whisper. "Hide."


	5. Suicide Mission

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Five: Suicide Mission:

There was a brief moment in which Eben just looked completely freaked out, but then, right before my eyes, something in him shifted, clicked, and he became the Sheriff again. Stella was gripping the steering wheel like her life depended on it, which was actually fairly accurate, and with every push of her foot, the truck picked up speed, careening down the snow packed road back toward the town faster than even one of the Cullens would have gone. One day, I would befriend someone who didn't drive like a maniac. Just one little twitch of the steering wheel, one false move, and Stella would have flipped us over into a ditch. I cringed to think of what would happen to us if a wheel slipped on the icy ground and, for a moment, I was back at Forks High School again and Tyler's van was screeching toward me across the parking lot. I shook away that thought because it would inevitably lead to other thoughts, thoughts about _him_, and what it felt like to have his cool chest pressed against me as he stopped the van from crushing the life out of my body.

Eben's gaze was steely, but a little blank, and I knew that he was formulating some kind of plan. In the interim of silence that passed as we rocketed closer to the town, I took a moment to perform a mental inventory of my emotions. I was terrified, as I rightly should be. I knew all about vampires and I knew that hiding wasn't going to do much of anything but prolong our suffering. However, behind that initial sweep of fear was a deep sense of resignation and I couldn't help but think that maybe _he_ had been right when he said that my number was up the first day I met him in biology class – that every time he had saved my life after he was just delaying the inevitable. I think I always knew, or suspected, or dreaded, that I would die at the hands of a vampire, though I had never once thought that any of the Cullens would hurt me. Even after Jasper's unfortunate reaction to my paper cut the night of my eighteenth birthday party, I never thought that I was in any danger with them, but I always knew, deep down, that I could only be so lucky for so long. If my number hadn't been up that first day of school back in Forks, well, it was now and I wasn't going to fight it, agonize over how painful it would be, or waste all of whatever time I had left being afraid of something that I couldn't stop. Whatever happened, I was just going to be grateful for the time I had been given, even though much of that time lately I had spent aching over the lost of my first, and most likely only, love.

"Here's what we're gonna do," Eben said, pulling me from my thoughts, his voice much calmer now. He wasn't Eben, a man just trying to protect his family anymore; no, he was Eben, the Sheriff of Barrow, Alaska. "We're gonna go through town, round up as many people as we can, and high tail it out to the Utilidor."

"Why the Utilidor?" I asked, remembering that Stella and Eben had given me a brief description of the building as we rode by it on the way back to their house the first day I was in Barrow.

"It's the town's designated emergency shelter," Eben explained. "It's the strongest building in Barrow because it's got some pretty dangerous equipment, the trash compactor and all that. You have to be a state employee with a security clearance to work there. They've got cameras, key pads to sign in and out with, all that kinda stuff, but the most useful thing about it is that it's got a generator that can last for a long time, which means that it'll have electricity so we won't freeze to death. Plus, it's only got the one entrance," he explained, "which we can barricade to keep those _things_ out."

"And then what?" Stella asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" Eben replied, looking sideways over at her.

"How long can we stay there?" She was looking at me now. I was the one with all of the answers and it made me extremely uncomfortable to be the center of attention.

"These vampires," I explained hesitantly, "they aren't like the ones in the movies. Garlic won't scare them and they don't need to be invited into your house. You can't stake them, in fact, their bodies are practically rock hard. I don't really think you can't kill them; they're too strong and you absolutely can't outrun them. They're much too fast. They can smell blood, so we'll have to be well hidden to avoid detection and even then," I shook my head, "I don't know that we'll make it. But more importantly," I emphasized, "sunlight doesn't hurt them. We can't just wait this out and hope that they'll poof into dust at the end of thirty days."

"So why did they wait until the thirty days of night to attack in the first place?" Eben asked confusedly.

"It's a whole lot easier to fake an accident that kills a hundred and fifty-three people than it is to fake an accident that kills five hundred and sixty-three," Stella said grimly. "The town's mostly empty, but there's still enough people to feed on. We're a buffet to them, just enough to keep them satiated. Besides, they don't want anyone to escape and there's no way we can get out of here now with the roads all iced over." She was looking at me again and I wished she'd keep her eyes on the road. I dug my fingernails into the armrest when we hit a hole in the road that jolted the truck and nearly threw me forward into the dash.

"I think you're right," I agreed, gritting my teeth, hoping that the ride would be over soon. "They don't want anyone to escape; they made that abundantly clear when they took out the helicopter and sled dogs."

"This is sort of a lost cause, isn't it?" Eben asked. "We're gonna die," he said, but his voice wasn't hopeless.

"Yes," I answered quietly.

He processed that for a few moments before speaking again. "No one else needs to know that," he responded. His eyes were shining with emotion as he looked at us. "That never leaves this truck. Whoever we find, whoever we can protect, we need to make them think that we'll get out of this. If people lose hope, we'll never survive. We have to try."

"I agree," Stella said.

"I won't say anything," I promised.

"People'll be looking to us for answers, for strength. We have to give it to them," Eben said. He was talking about Stella and himself, the town's authorities, as I was fairly certain that no one would be looking to me for strength. Clumsy people weren't really naturally born leaders.

"If we can last the thirty days," I said, "well… I think they'll leave when the sun comes up."

"Why?" Eben asked. "You just said the sun won't hurt them."

"It won't," I declared. "But people will start coming back to town and the vampires will want to be gone by then," I rationalized. "The roads'll be open for travel, people'll be flying in. The last thing they want is for anyone to find out about them. They'll leave, it'll look like some horrible accident happened, and no one will know the difference."

"So we just have to ride it out," Eben said, steeling his resolve. "Wait for the sun and then make a run for it out of here to someplace safer."

"Like Anchorage," Stella smiled.

"Or Forks," I said, thinking of Charlie. A deep pang of regret and sadness struck me when I thought of my dad, waiting at home for me. He'd known that it might be hard for me to get in touch with him while I was here, but I knew he would be devastated when he finally received word that I was dead. I shouldn't have been thinking so negatively, but I truly felt, deep in my heart, that I wasn't going to survive this time. No one was here to protect me anymore, my saviors were gone, and I was alone. I blinked back the tears that threatened to fall, I couldn't let myself wallow in sadness now.

Before anyone could say anything else, terrified screams suddenly erupted through the walkie talkie in Eben's lap. We all jumped and the truck swerved a little, but Stella brought it back under control. Eben grabbed the walkie talkie, talking frantically into it. "Helen?" He asked. "Helen!" More screams came through, then a choking, gurgling sound, then nothing. I started to feel nauseas, knowing exactly what that gurgling sound had been. It was starting, they were attacking, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Part of me wanted to lash out at God, or the fates, or whatever controlled the pitiful, little lives of humans, but another part of me sensed something inevitable about it all. Humans were so fragile in comparison to the things that existed out in the world, so meant to be broken, it was only natural that we would be. "Helen!" Eben yelled again, but the only sound in the truck was static. "Shit!" He said, pounding the dash with his fist and I half expected the air bag to deploy from the force of it. Putting the walkie talkie to his lips again, he pressed the 'talk' button. "Billy?" He asked. "Billy are you there?" Several moments of silence passed and he tried again. "Billy?" Billy never responded and I think we all realized in that moment that we would never see him again.

We were on the outskirts of town when we started to hear the gunshots. The town was in chaos – a car had been flipped over in front of a trailer and it was on fire, screams ripped through the night, people were running everywhere, terrified, some covered in blood, none of them responsive when Eben tried to yell for them to get in the truck. Another gunshot rang out and Stella gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Where was that?" She asked, scanning around her, but the chaos seemed limited to the outskirts of town. The closer we got to Main Street, the calmer everything became. Shots rang out again, closer, and we all ducked.

"Just get back to the station," Eben said, grinding his teeth together. I knew that he hated to ignore those shots and screams, but it was fairly clear as we continued to drive that his plan to round up as many people as he could wasn't going to work. We had to take care of ourselves.

Stella floored it and we reached the station in another seven minutes. Main Street was still fairly quiet, but I could hear the screams and gunshots from farther away echoing in the wind. The town seemed abuzz with fear, I could feel it in the air. We ran into the station, in the vain hope of finding Billy or Helen, but we didn't make it more than a few feet inside of the doorway when we all screeched to a stop. Eben turned away and ducked back out of the door, Stella quickly joining him. I stared for a few more seconds at the overwhelming pool of blood lying in the middle of the floor. A broad streak of it was smeared up the wall, one of the ceiling tiles missing, and the blood disappeared into the inky blackness above my head. I shuddered.

Then my eyes fell on the stranger. He twisted his head around until he was looking at me, his eyes wide, panicked. "They didn't take me!" He wailed. "They didn't take me." I realized in that moment what he had been hoping for, the same thing I had been hoping for at one point in my life. He wanted to become a vampire; he wanted them to change him. The smell of the blood was starting to be too much and my head swam as I pushed my way back out of the door. I was surprised that I had been able to be around the blood as long as I had and the fresh air cleared my senses. That glimpse of the stranger, still handcuffed to the bars of the cell door, was the last I ever saw of him. I never found out what had happened to him after and I really didn't care to know.

"Helen's dead," Eben murmured as his eyes quickly scanned the street. The blinds had been lowered at the diner, which was odd considering that it was night, and the lights were all off. As I followed Eben's gaze, I thought I saw someone peeking out from between the blinds. "Come on," he said. He grabbed Stella's hand and began to jog across the street. She reached back and grabbed mine, forming a human chain, and I expected to face plant in the snow as we ran, but I managed to keep my footing. We made it to the back door of the diner and knock lightly. The door shoved open after a few seconds and we slipped inside. My heart was pounding with fear and adrenaline, the combination serving to quicken my senses, rather than dull them. I wasn't paralyzed with fear, rather, I could see everything more clearly now, and my body seemed to know what to do without much input from my mind. I hadn't stumbled once as we ran, my legs seeming to know that they had to carry me without misstep if I was going to survive.

Six people were huddled in the seating area of the diner, all of them fidgeting frantically, lines of anxiety creasing their foreheads as they tried to figure out what was happening to their town. I felt sorry for them, realizing that the knowledge of what was out there in the night would completely overwhelm them. I hadn't reacted to the existence of vampires like most people, but my experience with vampires prior to this point had been mostly pleasant, save for the parts involving James. However, the people of Barrow were being introduced to vampires in a much different way and I knew that they wouldn't be able to process the information very well at all, if they even believed us. "Eben," Lucy whispered, relief coloring her voice when she saw him. "Thank God it's you."

"Lucy," he said, smiling, though his smile was strained. "Where's Billy?"

"I don't know," she said sadly. "I haven't seen him since he came by just after the power went out to tell us that you all were working on getting it back up."

"Okay," Eben said, knowing that the chances of his ever seeing his friend again were slim. He turned to face the others. They were all sitting on the floor, a couple of them holding flashlights, though they didn't dare turn them on. "The phone?" He asked.

"Dead," Lucy confirmed. We joined the others on the floor. The tiles were cold against my skin and, as the adrenaline started to wear off, I began to shiver, realizing how cold it was even in the building, now that the power was out and the heat was off.

"Were you all already in the diner when it happened?" Stella asked.

Some nodded yes, others nodded no. "I was home," Carter offered. "I live out on the ridge," he explained, mostly for my benefit, as everyone else already knew where he lived. "The attacks started happening there first."

"What was it like?" Eben asked curiously.

"I was sitting at home and I started hearing screaming," Carter said. His voice was low, but we could all hear him. My heart started beating erratically; I really didn't want to hear this story. I already knew how it would end. "I went outside to see what was going on. Three men, all paler than death, were surrounding my neighbor's trailer. They had him outside. His wife was still inside, and she was screaming. He was just pleading with them to leave her alone, but they weren't really listening to him. There must have been more of them inside with her," he paused. His face darkened. "Then the trailer started rocking around and the screams intensified. I could see blood splattering everywhere and then the ones outside, they ripped into that poor man on the ground, just tore him to shreds. And…," he trailed off, gathering the strength to say what he was going to say next. "They started drinking his blood, right in front of me. I ran, I didn't know what else to do. All the other homes were being attacked so I came here."

"They're attacking the outlying places first," Stella surmised. "Working their way into town."

"Why?" Another man asked. I think his name was Wilson, but I couldn't be certain.

"To drive us all into town," Eben said, blanching slightly.

"We're exactly where they want us," Stella realized. "It's easier to pick us all off if we're doing exactly what we're doing now….huddling together in some obvious central location."

"We need to move," Eben said, jumping to his feet and everyone followed suit. "But we can't make it to the Utilidor now, not if they're coming for us here. We could already be too late, God only knows where they are. We have to hide someplace closer until we have some cover."

"Cover?" I asked.

"We often get blizzards during the thirty days," Stella explained in an aside for me. "It'll be easier to move in a blizzard, our scent will be obscured by the wind and snow and no one will be able to see us."

"I know a place," a girl said. She looked not much older than me, far too young to die in such a horrible way as I was sure would be her fate.

"Where?" Eben asked. "Lucy," he said quickly, "gather as much food and water as you can. We may need to stay in one place for a while."

"Charlie Kelso's attic," the girl said. Stella whispered to me that her name was Denise. I didn't know whether I should bother remembering the names; I didn't know if any of these people would be alive long enough for me to get to know them. I felt very callous thinking that, but I couldn't help but feel the weight of what was happening wear me down. "He boards his house up for the winter and leaves. The attic is really well hidden, you can barely see it, and it's got a pull down ladder."

"Alright," Eben replied, taking control. "Carter, I need you to get everyone to the attic."

"Where are you going?" Stella and I asked in unison. Panic flared up in my chest again; Eben couldn't leave, I needed him.

"You guys will need some cover and I have to try to help the people out there. Even if I can only save one person, I have to try," Eben explained desperately. "This is my town, I'm responsible for it."

"So what're you gonna do?" Stella asked, her voice challenging. "You can't fight them."

"I'm not going to," he replied. "I'm just gonna take the truck and drive."

"That's such a truly horrible idea," I countered.

"I have to," he said with such conviction that it was hard to argue with him.

"Then I'm going with you," Stella responded, exasperated.

Before I could stop myself, I found myself adding, "Me too." I could have kicked myself when I said it and, Eben looked at me like I was crazy, but I was not leaving Eben and Stella.

"No way," he said. "Charlie sent you up here expecting me to take care of you. I'm not putting you in a blatantly dangerous situation."

"We're already in a blatantly dangerous situation. And, no offense Carter," I said, turning to him, "but I feel much safer with you, Eben." Carter shrugged and started rounding everyone up by the back door. Lucy had several bags of food and water and both Wilson and Carter took them from her to carry. I had no idea why I was arguing so vehemently to go with Eben and Stella when I knew it was a bad idea to leave the safety of the group. Maybe _he_ had been right; maybe I really didn't have any sense of self preservation at all. I should have been dead a long time ago.

Eben and I stared each other down. By the back door, Carter was itching to leave, waiting for Eben's decision. Finally, the Sheriff nodded. "Okay," he said. "But only because you know more about any of this than the rest of us and that knowledge might come in handy."

I breathed out a sigh of relief that I hadn't even realized I was holding. The thought of watching Eben and Stella walk out that door without me, knowing that I may never see them again, had sent me into such a fit of panic. The others disappeared out the back door, while Eben, Stella, and I crept to the front. Eben unlocked it slowly and inched the door open. We couldn't see anything outside and, though I had never been scared of the dark, the blackness all around us seemed incredibly ominous. He threw open the door and we all bolted for the truck parked by the police station. I dove into the middle seat again, Stella was back in the driver's seat and Eben next to me in the passenger's side. She hesitated for a moment before starting the engine. The sound of the truck would surely draw attention, but that was part of what Eben wanted. He wanted people to hear the truck and run toward it and he wanted the vampires to be too distracted by us to realize that six people were silently creeping out of the diner toward what might be our salvation - an attic. Oh, the horrible ideas were abounding today.

The engine roared to life and Stella slammed on the gas pedal. The truck shot forward, but we didn't make it far. Only about twenty yards from the diner, the truck abruptly came to a halt. It didn't make any sense, Stella still had her foot on the gas and, as if the thought occurred to all three of us at the same time, we turned very slowly to look behind us. We sucked in a collective, terrified gasp when we saw three vampires standing at the back of the truck, lifting up the spinning rear tires. Stella stomped the gas again, but it didn't matter, the wheels were spinning fruitlessly. Meanwhile, the vampires were lifting the truck higher and higher off the ground and I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming uncontrollably. Both Stella and Eben drew their guns and I wanted to yell at them that bullets wouldn't do any good, but I couldn't find the strength to speak.

I couldn't move, I couldn't even think. This fear didn't bring any clarity, this was the paralyzing kind of fear that had gripped everyone back at the diner. All I saw was the ground suddenly appearing in the windshield. We were looking down on it and I realized that the truck was almost vertical in the air. My stomach was up in my throat as I braced myself on the dash. I knew that in a few moments, the truck would tip and we would be careening toward the ground. The cab doors were suddenly ripped from their hinges, thirsty vampires clinging to the truck. Eben and Stella started firing, but the bullets did little good, just as I had wanted to tell them. Then it happened – we reached the highest vertical point that we could and the truck started falling forward. I finally allowed myself to scream, but my scream as drowned in the squealing of metal and the crunch that followed after we smashed into the ground.

All of the windows shattered. I slammed my head onto the dash and then fell straight down onto the roof. I hadn't put my seatbelt on, none of us had in fact. We had been too preoccupied with thoughts of our fairly suicidal mission to worry about such trivial things as buckling up and, I don't know, staying alive. I could feel blood oozing from my head and my shoulder flared in pain when I tried to move it. I realized that I must have popped it out of the socket when I slammed into the roof. I was upside down and I could smell gasoline. Stella and Eben were struggling beside me to disentangle themselves from the truck. I knew I should be doing the same, but I couldn't bring myself to move, everything hurt too badly.

My decision was made for me when the vampires pounced on the truck, now that it was stopped, and started clawing at us. They pulled at Eben and Stella, trying to drag them from the vehicle, and two hands snared around my arms, yanking me. My shoulder popped back in and I yelped in pain as the vampire dragged me through the crushed glass of the windshield, pieces of the glass digging into my back. I was free of the truck, laying in the snow. It was so cold, but the cold felt good against the blood seeping from my head and back. The sky was dark above me, but I couldn't see any stars this time. Clouds obscured my vision. Dimly, I heard Eben and Stella desperately yelling for me, I heard the snarling of the vampires, and I smelled the gasoline, but it was the sky that captivated me. That is, until the pale, hungry, feral face of the vampire that had pulled me from the truck leaned into my vision. His teeth were bared, his face was smeared with blood, and I knew I was going to die.


	6. Death

_30 Days of Night_

Chapter Six: Death:

I've stared death in the face, so to speak, a couple of times now. I didn't know it then, but the first time was in biology class when I sat down next to Edward Cullen. I hadn't said his name since he left; I hadn't even thought it. But I was about to die again and the thought of having to face that darkness alone, without even his name to comfort me, was too much. That first day with him, I had seen death staring into my eyes in the guise of the most beautiful boy I had ever beheld. Well, man I guess. Edward was a little too old to be a boy; but I didn't know that then. That death had come in the form of Edward's black, rage filled eyes and in the venom that pooled in his mouth when he thought of grabbing me, hauling me out of my chair, slamming me down on the lab table, and sinking his teeth into the delicate flesh of my neck, right where my pulse beat out its regular little rhythm.

The second time was when Tyler's van almost crushed me. That death would have been quick. Only a couple moments of pain, just enough to remind me that something horrible was happening. But it would have been over before I even realized that I was dying. The third time was when James was filming his little video in the ballet studio. That death would have been long, protracted, designed to inflict as much pain on me as possible. I still very clearly remembered how my mind had been completely overwhelmed with agony when he broke my leg. I remembered the burning, that intense burning, in my hand where he bit me. All three times, Edward had saved me. Edward the man, not the vampire, had chosen to walk away from me in biology. Edward had pulled me out of the way of the van, even before I knew what he was, even before I ever meant anything to him. Edward had saved me from James just when I thought I had sacrificed myself for nothing.

Now I was looking at death again for the fourth time. If it was possible, this vampire seemed even more inhuman than any I'd ever seen. Even more brutal than James. He was bald, his skin so translucently white that I thought I could see every vein and tendon in his arms. His mouth was smeared with blood. It was dripping from his lips onto the snow. His eyes were bright red, so red they seemed to glow in the dark. He smiled down at me, relishing the thought of closing his mouth over my warm skin, anticipating the moment when the blood would first bubble up in my veins and then spill over into his mouth. I probably should have tried to run, at least made a show of it. I knew I wouldn't be able to get far. But I felt like I at least needed to play the part and not bow quite so submissively to death. Yet, part of me wanted to just lay in the snow. Part of me just wanted the damn vampire to bite me already so I wouldn't have to live with so much pain all the time.

The moment my thoughts shifted into that direction something truly amazing happened. I _heard_ his voice. I didn't hear it like he was standing behind me or anything. I heard it like it was ringing in my head. Bells, distant chimes carried to me on the breeze. It was so beautiful, so terribly beautiful I felt like crying. I had always feared that I would forget everything about him. I feared I would forget his face – the way his hair always seemed so artfully messed up, like he had just woken up and hadn't bothered to brush it down, or the rich, warm honey color of his eyes after he had hunted, his smooth, white, clear skin, or how dark his lips seemed to look against that skin. I also feared I would forget his voice, how musical it sounded, like Alice's voice. But here it was, ringing in my head like the first time I heard it.

_Bella! Run!_ That voice yelled in my head. It sounded so concerned too, like he really did care about me. It was amazing what the mind could delude you into thinking. Well, I was gonna die, so there was no point in facing reality anymore. I could pretend like he really did love me and really did want me and really would have been terrified at the prospect of losing me. _Bella, please, get up! Run!_ I could never say no to him, not even to his voice in my head. Not even to my own personal, delusional Edward voice. So I struggled to my feet. This only seemed to amuse the vampire more though. I was standing in front of him now. The truck was behind me. I could hear Eben and Stella fighting their own battles with the vampires trying to yank them from the overturned truck.

I didn't quite know what to do. So the voice told me and it was nice to give in control to my delusion. _To the right!_ He said. _Go to the right!_ I went to the right. The vampire mimicked my movements, moving to the left. He was circling me like I was circling him, I realized. Only he was the predator and I was the prey. However, something happened then that neither of us had expected. I didn't even see it coming. If I had been standing where I was only a few seconds ago, I probably would have been decapitated, which was not a pleasant thought. In a rumble of smoke and screeching metal, this machine came out of nowhere. I didn't even really know what it was. Some kind of drill. It was going fast and it slammed into the vampire that had been intent on eating me. The drill was meant to dig through rock and it did. It tore apart that vampire like he was nothing, scattering pieces of him all over the place. I closed my eyes and turned away, some of his blood slapping onto the back of my jacket. The sound was enough to make me start gagging. It sounded like raw meat hitting a wall.

"Get in!" A hearty voice boomed out. I looked back and saw the machine had stopped. A man was sitting in the cab, but he looked more like a bear. He was burly, but not really intimidating. His brown hair was wild and his beard reached down his chest. He was reaching out to me. "Get in!" He yelled again, motioning for me. I ran toward the machine and grabbed his hand as he pulled me in. I felt a strong sense of relief sitting next to him, even though the vampires that had attacked the truck were only a few feet away, gaping at us. The vampires evidently had not been expecting this guy to interrupt their games. I was so relieved to see him, in fact, that I almost started to cry. Both Eben and Stella took that moment to pull themselves clear of the truck. They started running toward us. The man backed the thing up. Stella jumped in first, then Eben. The man slammed the gas and shifted gears. Despite the bulky weight of the drill attached to the front, the machine shot forward faster than I expected.

"What is this thing?" I asked breathlessly, trying desperately to blink away my tears so I wouldn't look like the weak, little girl that I really was.

"It's a ditch driller," the man said matter-of-factly. "I'm Beau."

"Bella," I said, reaching over to shake his hand when he offered it to me. "You don't even know how nice it is to meet you."

"You guys looked like you needed a little help back there," he said, laughing to himself.

"Yeah, well," Eben replied, doubled over in his seat, panting into his inhaler, "I think we would have gotten a grip on it eventually."

"Sure," Beau snorted.

"Thanks, man," Eben said seriously, looking over at him.

Beau ducked his head, not one to handle emotions very well. "Who's gonna write me tickets if you get yourself fragged like everyone else?" He asked.

The others chuckled, but I was still too in shock from the whole truck flipping, hungry vampire, near decapitation thing to join them. "We need to get rid of this thing," Stella said.

"And go where?" Beau asked.

"We know a place," Eben replied.

Beau nodded, obviously not happy to have to ditch his baby. But we did. And then we were back out in the cold again. We were huddled behind an apartment building. The ditch driller was parked in front of it. "Where are we going?" Beau asked.

"Charlie Kelso's place," Eben answered. "Denise said he's got an attic that's pretty well hidden."

"How does she know that?" Beau asked, frowning.

"Well," Eben said thoughtfully, "apparently she's seen it once or twice."

"I wonder what Charlie's wife thinks of that," Stella snorted.

"We need to make a run for it," Beau interrupted. "Like now. Those things'll come looking for the drill and, when they find it and not us, they'll start hunting."

I looked at Eben and Stella and sighed. I knew that I was covered in blood. So were they. "We can't go to Charlie's," I said grimly.

"Why the hell not?"Eben asked.

"We're all bloody, Eben," I pointed out. "They'll be able to smell us. We can't draw them to the exact place where we've stashed what could be the only remaining human population of Barrow."

"Shit," Eben said, realizing that I was right. "What do we do?"

"We need to clean up, get this blood off," I replied. "Maybe find another house that's boarded up for winter, change clothes, and towel off. If we can wash the blood away before they find us, we have a chance. We'll need to be quick about it though."

"Come on," Eben said. We followed after him. The first boarded up house we stumbled upon, we snuck into. While Eben changed clothes and Beau guarded our entrance, Stella and I found ourselves rummaging through the closet in a another room. We both stripped and toweled ourselves as clean as we could. Stella found a first aid kit in the bathroom and worked diligently to clean and bandage both of our wounds.

"Shit," she murmured as she bandaged up my back. "You've got so much glass in these cuts. But we don't have time for to dig it all out. Does it hurt?" She asked in concern.

I thought about her question for a moment. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I could feel the pain more acutely. "Yeah, it does," I said, wincing when I tried to move. "I hadn't really noticed before."

"You were in shock," she stated. "That's understandable."

"I guess," I said. She finished bandaging the cuts. "Hand me a shirt," I instructed. She tossed one my way and I gingerly slid it down over my arms. The bandages prevented the fabric from scratching my wounds, for which I was grateful.

"I'm afraid your wounds will get infected," she said as we both pulled on pairs of jeans. The clothes fit me well, but they were a little tight on Stella. "I don't know when we'll be able to really patch you up right. We can't risk getting the glass out and making the cuts bleed again once we're in the attic."

"I'll be alright," I said, even though I had no way of knowing that. My only concern now was trying to get to Charlie's place without running into more vampires. "Believe it or not, I've had worse."

"You'll have to explain that to me sometime," Stella said, smiling a little.

"When we get to Charlie's place," I promised. _If,_ I mentally corrected.

We all met up downstairs. Eben had cleaned and bandaged his own cuts. Beau was scrutinizing what little he could see of the outside. "Well?" Eben asked.

"I don't see anything," Beau replied hesitantly.

"That doesn't mean there's nothing out there," Stella muttered.

It was eerily quiet outside. But vampires could move so silently when they wanted to. I knew that from personal experience. No one really wanted to leave the sanctuary of the house, but our bloody clothes were still upstairs and the vampires would find them soon, if they weren't waiting for us outside already. That thought sent a shudder down my spine. I had faced death for the fourth time tonight and I wasn't looking forward to another. But I wouldn't delay the inevitable either. "Let's just get this over with," I grumbled, moving ahead of others to slip back out of the crack in the boards. They followed behind me, as quietly as possible. The breeze had picked up and I noticed small flakes of snow starting to fall from the sky.

We crept silently on, every step that crunched the hard-packed snow on the ground seeming to reverberate in our ears. It was totally hopeless trying to run from vampires. Even more hopeless trying to hide. Edward had been right – vampires were the world's best predators. They had everything going for them and humans, well, we had nothing. We were slow, weak, and vulnerable. The smell of our very blood gave us away. After each step, I expected to be grabbed from behind and yanked into some dark corner. I expected the vampires to jump from the buildings around us and pin us to the ground. I expected pretty much anything but that we'd make it back to Charlie Kelso's house. Yet, we were almost there. It was a astonishing that we had gotten three feet from the ditch driller in the first place.

"Hold up a minute," Eben said, signaling for us to stop. "Let's just make sure that we haven't attracted any unwanted attention."

We all crouched down, gazing intently at the buildings surrounding us. I couldn't see any movement. If the vampires were following us, they were staying well hidden. "I think we're alone." I said finally.

"I don't see anything either," Stella agreed.

We were about to move forward when someone called out to Eben. "Eben!" The voice hissed. We all looked around wildly, surprised to think that someone else had survived. Finally, my eyes landed on a man hiding underneath of a raised trailer.

"Over there," I said, pointing to him. We all moved closer.

"Eben!" The guy said again. He looked horrible. I could only imagine how long he had been out in the snow. He wasn't wearing a jacket and his skin was so pale. He was probably freezing to death. His eyes were glued firmly to the ground and I wondered what he had seen to make him so afraid to look up. Eben ran over to him while we lingered by the side of the adjacent house.

"John!" Eben said when he reached the other building. He put his back to the side of it, sliding down so that he was crouching next to John Riis. But he was facing us so that he could keep an eye what was going on behind us. I knew that he wanted us to go to Charlie's house, but none of us wanted to split up. "How long have you been out here, man?" Eben asked.

"I don't know," John said. He teeth were chattering together. He sounded completely confused. He was still looking down.

"Are you hurt?" Eben asked. He looked down at him, where he was still hiding under the house. But he couldn't see him really, not from the angle he was looking.

"My leg," John said. "Can't move it real well. It's stiff and it hurts."

"Okay," Eben nodded. He turned around to face John and held his arms out. "Take my hands," he said, "I'll pull you out."

I could see John nod. He grabbed Eben's hands and, with one swift movement, Eben pulled him out into the snow. He couldn't get to his feet on his own, so Eben let him lean on his shoulder as he helped him up. That's when I noticed it. I hadn't noticed before because John had kept his gaze firmly on the ground. But he looked up at Eben and his eyes were bright red. "Oh shit!" Eben yelled, pushing away from him and scrambling back into the snow. Eben fell over and John tottered on his feet, unsteady without the contact.

I didn't understand it. I thought new born vampires were supposed to be strong. But this guy…he was weak. Then I realized that he hadn't eaten anything. He had been hiding under the house while the transformation happened. For some reason, he didn't just run right out to grab the first human he saw. No, he stayed there. He waited. And the transformation, which had taken Edward and Carlisle three days to complete, had happened in the course of a single night for him. "John," Eben said, slipping as he tried to get to his feet. "What happened to you, man?" Finally, he was standing again. John hadn't tried to move forward. He just stood there like he didn't know what to do. It dawned on me that he didn't know what was going on – he didn't know what he was. He hadn't tried to eat anyone because he didn't really know that he was supposed to.

"I don't know," he said haltingly. "One of them bit me," he held up his arm. His shirt was stained with blood.

"He became one them," Stella murmured beside me. "How is that possible?"

"Venom," I said. "They have venom in their saliva. When they bite you, it starts the transformation."

"But," Stella looked back at me with wide eyes, "you said you were bitten before. You showed me your scar." She touched my hand briefly. Beau's eyes traveled down to my hand and he exhaled sharply.

"Shit, girl," he murmured.

"I tell you about that later," I said. "But right now, we need to get away from this guy. He's dangerous. I just don't think he realizes that yet."

"Doesn't seem that dangerous to me," Beau snickered. "In fact, he seems kinda wobbly."

I had to admit, Beau was right. For being a newborn vampire, this guy was having a hard time keeping his feet. He was even more clumsy than me. He had started shuffling toward Eben. Eben drew his gun, but knew that firing it would do little good. It would only draw more vampires to our location. Eben backed up. "Eben," John said, his voice cracking a little. "What's wrong with me? Why am I so _thirsty_?" He asked. Then something in him shifted. When he thought about the thirst, it was all he could think about. It consumed him. He stood up a little straighter, strength seeming to flow through him now. He looked at Eben with his head cocked to the side. "Your blood," he drawled out in a low whisper. "It smells so good. I just want…I just want to taste a little of it." He lunged at Eben. In scrambling backwards, Eben managed to run into the swing set behind the house. He fell through the swing, which hit John in the stomach. In his frenzy to get to Eben, John successfully managed to tangle himself up in the metal chains. He was thrashing wildly, the chains threatening to break and release him. John was finding his strength. It had taken him a while, but he seemed like he was more in tune with his body. And whatever humanity had been in him had fled as soon as he started obsessing over his thirst.

Eben didn't know what to do. I saw Stella toying with her gun, but she was undecided too. Beau really looked like he just wanted to get the hell out. I was starting to think that groups weren't really his thing. So I decided to take matters into my own hands, which I realized was immensely stupid, just like my hiding plan. But I was running on empty. Besides, I was just one little human. I didn't know what I was doing. And doing stupid, irrational things seemed to come easily to me anyway. Moving forward before Stella could stop me, I grabbed an axe from a chopping block next to the house. _Bella, no!_ The voice shouted in my head again, but this time I ignored it. John had almost grabbed a hold of Eben. I knew that vampires had rock hard skin. They weren't particularly vulnerable. I had no idea where to swing the axe. Then the voice spoke again. _Bella, hit the neck! If you insist on doing this, strike the neck! _Edward had told me that you had to rip a vampire apart to kill it. Well, I was going to try. I braced myself, knowing full well that I would probably break my arms from the impact of the axe hitting the vampire's hard skin. Then I swung the axe.

It connected with his neck and the handle shuddered. A jolt ran through me like I had punched a brick wall. But the axe had miraculously buried itself in his neck. I had to stifle a victory cry. Of course, when I stopped to think about what I was doing, it made me a little sick. I yanked the axe out and struck again. John's head flew off. I could hear Stella gagging and vomiting behind me. Blood sprayed out of the wound. The head landed into the snow, rolled a few feet, and stopped. His eyes were still looking at me. It was really disturbing. But I tried not to dwell on it. John's body was still tangled in the swing and hung limply now that his head was off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Beau staring at me with some serious respect on his face. I smirked. Yeah, I was a little eighteen year old girl. But that didn't mean I couldn't kick some ass. Eben jumped up and grabbed the axe out of my hands.

"Holy shit I can't believe you just did that," he said, running a shaky hand through his hair. "Your father is gonna kill me if he finds out."

I looked over at him, incredulous. "Really not the thing to be worrying about right now," I pointed out. "Besides, it's not enough."

"What's not enough?"Eben asked.

"Cutting off his head," I shrugged. "We have to dismember him."

"Oh, I can't watch this," I heard Stella say. She and Beau disappeared around the corner of the house. Eben stared hard at me.

"You seem oddly unfazed about this," he said.

"I'm comfortable with things that I should not be comfortable with," I said simply. Edward had told me that a thousand times. Eben quickly dismembered John's body, not comfortable having me do it. We both stood there for a few seconds in the silence after he was finished.

"That'll do it?" He asked. "He won't get up again or anything?"

"He's down," I confirmed.

"Well," Eben said slowly, wiping the axe off on the snow, "I guess we better get going."

I nodded and followed him as we walked around to where the others were waiting. Stella was having a rather difficult time looking at me, but Beau couldn't stop staring. We softly crept over to Charlie's house and pried open a plank. Once we were all inside, we covered it up again. "The others are probably already up there," Eben said. We snuck through the house until we reached the place where Denise had said the pull down ladder was. Eben inspected it for a few moments. "It's well hidden," he murmured. "As long as they can't smell us, we'll be alright."

I didn't have the heart to tell him they would probably be able to smell us fairly quickly. But I didn't know that for certain. Perhaps we would get lucky. The whole town smelled like humans and, really, even the air was starting to smell a lot like blood and death anyway. Maybe they wouldn't notice us. Maybe the constant breeze and snow would cover our scents. Eben knocked lightly on the ceiling and the ladder came down. We saw Carter peering down at us from the darkness. "Hey," he said, a twinkle in his eye. "I was starting to think you'd never show."

"Got one more," Eben said. Beau nodded to Carter. Once we were all up in the attic, Carter pulled the ladder back up. It was dark, but some candles were flickering. The others were huddled among blankets and pillows they had taken from the rooms downstairs. The food and water was organized into piles. Eben greeted everyone, smiling as he did. But his smile was tight. I knew he was thinking about what had just happened outside with John Riis.

My hands were still tingling. I remembered playing softball once in gym. I had been batting, even though it was fairly cold outside to be playing ball and no teacher in his right mind should have given me a softball bat. When the bat connected with the ball, it had sent shocks down the metal much like hitting the vampire had sent shocks down the handle of the axe. I had the same ache in my hands now as I had after gym that day. I settled on some pillows and pulled a blanket around myself. Stella sat next to me. She was looking at me quietly. Finally, she spoke. "We need to talk," she said.

"About what?" I asked. We were whispering and she was the only person who could hear me, which I preferred. I knew where this conversation was going and I didn't particularly want everyone to know my entire life story. Eben was across the attic, making plans with Beau, Carter, Wilson, and another man. But no one spoke above the merest whisper. We were all too afraid to be heard.

"That bite mark on your hand," Stella said, looking down at it again. "How did you get it? These vampires. How you know about all of this? How did you get involved with vampires in the first place? I want the whole story," she demanded. "Start from the beginning."

I sighed, knowing there was no way around this. It would be a painful story for me to tell, but I had to do it. I took a deep breath and started talking. "It all started when I moved to a town called Forks in Washington state…"


	7. The Girl

_30 Days of Night_

Chapter Seven: The Girl:

"It all started when I moved to a town called Forks in Washington state," I began, my voice barely above a whisper. Stella leaned in closer to better hear me. I couldn't look into her face. That would have been too personal, too intimate. If I was going to tell this story, I had to be detached. I couldn't let myself feel all of the things that I knew I would feel. So I focused my eyes on the dark corner of the attic and continued in as dead a voice as I could. "I hated it there at first," I laughed a little. "It was cloudy and rainy all the time. So different from Phoenix."

"Why did you go there?" Stella asked.

"My mom remarried this guy named Phil," I explained. "He's a minor league baseball player, so he has to travel a lot for games. My mom always stayed with me, but I knew she wanted to go with him. So I volunteered to live with my dad for a while to let her do what she wanted."

"That's very selfless," Stella said quietly.

I shrugged. "Anyway," I continued, "my first day of school was horrible. I hate being the center of attention and everyone seemed to want to talk to me. I was the shiny, new toy," I said, quoting Jessica. "Except for this one boy. Edward." I said his name slowly. "Edward Cullen."

"He's the guy, isn't he?" Stella asked. "The guy who left."

I nodded, not quite trusting my voice at that moment. "Edward and I met on rather bad terms," I said, chuckling a little. "You see, Edward is a vampire. And the first day I met him, he wanted nothing more than to drain me." Stella sucked in a breath at that statement and I finally brought myself to look into her eyes. She looked afraid for me.

"He bit you?" She asked, jumping to conclusions.

"No," I shook my head vehemently. "He would never." I looked down at my hands for a little while. "Edward and his family are different from other vampires."

"His family?" Stella questioned, confused.

"He lives with a group of vampires who all choose to live the same way. None of them eat humans," I explained. "They only drink the blood of animals. They choose to call themselves vegetarians," I said, smiling a little at their inside joke. "Esme and Carlisle claim to be his adoptive parents in the eyes of the human world. And for all intents and purposes, they are his parents. He views them that way. Then there's his brothers, Jasper and Emmett, and his sisters, Alice and Rosalie. We all went to school together." Another wave of sadness broke over me when I thought of Alice, my former best friend. I could almost see her short, spiky, black hair and her beautiful smile.

"I didn't know vampires could do that," Stella said in amazement, "resist drinking human blood. Of course," she added dryly, "until today I didn't actually know vampires existed either."

"It's difficult for them," I said hesitantly. "Carlisle, for example, is very old. And it's not hard for him anymore. He works in a hospital, well he did. He was around blood all the time, and he didn't ever want to drink it. But for others, it's…well, more difficult."

"What do you mean?" Stella asked.

"Jasper was the newest person to join the family," I said. I looked back at the attic wall again. This was the hardest part of the story to tell really. "On my eighteenth birthday, the Cullens threw a party for me. I didn't really want a party…again, not liking the whole center of attention thing. But they insisted. Plus," I added, "I didn't really want them spending any money on me. They're obscenely wealthy."

"What happened?" Stella asked, rightly sensing the dread in my voice and my reluctance to talk about this particular day, one of the worst days of my life.

"I was opening a gift," I continued slowly, struggling to find the words. "And I got a paper cut. It was nothing really. Just a little cut. But some blood came out." I paused. Looking down at my hands, I realized that they were shaking. Stella reached over and clasped them in her own. She smiled at me encouragingly. "Jasper reacted as soon as he smelled it," I sighed, closing my eyes. The whole scene replayed on my eyelids. "He lunged at me. All he could think about was the blood. It's all he wanted. In that moment, I didn't exist anymore. I wasn't Bella, his brother's girlfriend. I was just…a meal."

"But he obviously didn't kill you," Stella stated.

"No," I replied. "Edward stopped him. But that night changed everything. Edward had been able to protect me from the outside world. He didn't like that I was such a danger magnet, but he accepted that the world was dangerous for me, for any human really. He always thought that his being in my life made everything even more dangerous, but I had always been able to talk him out of that. I had always been able to make him see that I was safer with him around. But when his own brother tried to kill me, it just convinced him that I would never be safe with him."

"So he left," Stella concluded.

"He left," I confirmed. "And he didn't just leave. He said things…," I trailed off. _I don't want you anymore_. That was what I remembered most clearly from that afternoon, the last one in which I ever saw him. "I haven't seen him since. He and his family moved. None of them said goodbye. I thought I meant something to them. I thought I was special," I choked out disdainfully, thinking again of Alice. "But I was wrong."

Stella sat with me in silence for a few moments, still holding my hands, absorbing all of the information I had just given her. "And what about the bite mark?"

"Another vampire named James did that," I said, looking down at the bite. "He was a tracker and hunting was his favorite thing in the world. He couldn't pass up the opportunity to try to hunt a human girl that a group of vampires was trying to protect. Eventually, he was able to lure me away from the Cullens and he bit me."

"So why aren't you a vampire now?" Stella asked.

"Edward sucked the venom out," I said. She looked at me in surprise. "It must have been very difficult for him," I conceded. "Since the first day he met me, he had to fight the urge to want to suck my blood. And then he had the opportunity to. But he stopped. He stopped when he needed to and here I am. I don't know," I said, looking away into nothing. "Sometimes I wish he hadn't stopped. Maybe then I'd still be with him."

"But then you'd be like those things out there," Stella said, malice dripping in her voice.

"I don't think so," I replied. "I would have learned to live like the Cullens."

Stella shook her head. "They're monsters, Bella."

"Those vampires out there," I said, motioning to the world outside, "yeah, they're soulless monsters. But you never met the Cullens. You don't know. They were so…kind. It didn't matter to them that I wasn't one of them. They just accepted and loved me anyway." Except for Rosalie, but I had never gotten the chance to find out why she didn't like me. There's no way someone like Alice, or Esme, or Carlisle, could be evil."

"How did they avoid coming into contact with human blood?" Stella suddenly asked. "I mean, one little drop of blood from a paper cut set this Jasper guy off. How did he go to high school with you and not run into someone bleeding in the hallway? When I was in school, people got into fist fights every day."

It was a good question and I was a little surprised that she had been listening that intently. "They have gifts," I explained. "Well, some of them do. Emmett and Rosalie didn't."

"What were they like?" Stella asked.

"Emmett is just this big teddy bear of a guy. He's a little intimidating when you don't know him because he's so tall and so muscular. But he's just a big goofball. He used to love making me blush. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world," I said, chuckling a little at my memories of Emmett. "Rosalie is his wife. She's probably the most beautiful creature on the planet. But she never liked me. In fact, I think she hates me. She didn't like that I had managed to worm my way into their secret life."

"She was afraid you'd tell someone?" Stella surmised.

"I guess," I shrugged. "Or that Edward would slip and kill me and they'd have to leave their home. Which they did anyway," I said and sighed. "Alice was my best friend. She was like this little fairy. So graceful and ethereal almost. She had visions of the future."

"Visions?" Stella asked, shock on her face.

"She could see the future. But only to a certain extent. She could see things based on what decisions you made. Once you made a new decision, or changed your mind about something, the vision could change," I explained as best I could. "I suppose she always knew when something would happen so the others would be able to avoid dealing with blood. Like, for instance, she knew to let Edward know when we were doing blood typing in biology so he could avoid having to be in a room full of bleeding teenagers."

"What about Jasper?" Stella asked. "What was he like?"

"Jasper was more aloof," I said. "It wasn't that he didn't like me. It was just that he was afraid he'd hurt me. He knew that he couldn't control himself as well. But he was fiercely devoted to Alice. He loved her so much," I said, looking down at my hands again. "Jasper could manipulate people's emotions. So if he was in a room full of angry people, he could calm them all down."

"That would be useful," Stella commented thoughtfully. "And what about Edward?" She finally asked.

I sighed. I really hated talking about Edward. Just thinking his name, let alone saying it, stirred up so many painful memories, so many difficult emotions. "Edward was….well, he was indescribable really," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "He was perfect in just about every way. And I loved him," I shrugged my shoulders. "He could read people's minds, but not mine. It drove him crazy," I had to smile a little at that.

"Do you think any of those vampires out there can do anything?" Stella asked, shuddering a little at the thought of one of them reading our minds or manipulating our emotions.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "It's possible."

Stella settled back on the pillow she was leaning on. The events of the day were starting to catch up with both of us. I was suddenly exhausted and I knew by the way her eyes were drooping that she wanted to sleep as well. "It's weird," she said tiredly. "It was only a few hours ago that Eben and I were getting married."

I looked over at her sharply. I had completely forgotten. Tonight was their wedding night. I suddenly felt terrible for her. Giving her hand a sympathetic squeeze, I smiled. "Don't worry," I said. "We'll get out of this." I didn't really believe it, but I didn't know what else to say. "You'll still make your honeymoon." She smiled at me, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. She didn't believe we would survive this either.

Our conversation drifted off. Over the next thirteen days, the ten of us managed a rather comfortable, if not monotonous, routine. We slept in shifts. We rationed our food. Most importantly, we stayed as quiet as was possible. Every once in a while, we would hear screams from somewhere, or gunshots. There were still other people alive in town. But they were slowly being picked off. We knew that we were being hunted too. Eventually, they would find us. By the thirteenth night, we were starting to run low on food. People were getting antsy. You could only keep ten people cooped up in an attic for so long before tempers began to flare. Eben tried to keep everyone calm. He tried to reassure us. But even he was getting frustrated. We had been counting on a blizzard to give us the cover we needed to make it to the Utilidor, but there hadn't yet been any substantial snow.

This particular night, everyone was a little riled up. Wilson had been having some problems keeping his father, Isaac, quiet. Isaac had Alzheimer's and, every once in a while, he would wake up calling for his dead wife. He wasn't trying to get us killed, but each time he spoke, I think we all expected a vampire to come crashing through the roof. Wilson had just managed to quiet him down when we heard another voice. Someone was calling out from down on the street.

We all moved over to the little boarded up window. Eben pulled the board away as far as he thought was safe and we crammed together to look outside. A girl was walking down the snow packed street. She looked to be about my age. It was freezing outside, well below zero, but she wasn't wearing a coat and she was shaking. But I didn't think she was shaking from the cold. No, she was terrified. "Help!" She called out. "Please. Is anyone there! Someone please help me!"

"We need to get her in here before they hear her," Carter said hurriedly.

"Wait," Eben said, holding up his hand as Beau moved for the ladder.

"What for?" Beau asked, looking back at him incredulously. "That kid's gonna die."

I followed Eben's gaze, trying to figure out what he was looking at that had made him so reluctant to help whoever she was. Then I saw them. Vampires. They were moving so quickly it was difficult to distinguish their shapes on the rooftops. Their pale skin blended in with the snow. But their clothes stuck out. They were following slowly behind the girl, watching, waiting. They were hoping that someone would try to help her – someone else that they could feed on. "Jesus," I muttered when I realized what they were doing. "They're using her as bait."

Eben nodded over to me. "Look at the rooftops," he explained to Beau and Carter. "You see there?" He asked. A pale shape practically blurred from one roof to the next. Others followed it. "They're watching her."

"Shit," Beau said, angrily shuffling across the room. I knew that he wanted to hit something. He was purposefully getting away from us so he wouldn't accidentally lash out at one of us. He sat himself roughly down in a corner and buried his face in his hands, taking deep breaths to calm the anger flaring within him. "Sick fucking bastards," he murmured.

I turned back to the scene unfolding outside of the window. "We can't just do nothing," I heard Stella say behind me. But her voice wavered. Even she knew that there was nothing that we could do, nothing that wouldn't get us all killed. So we all just sat there. That poor girl outside kept calling for help. She called for about twenty minutes, her voice getting weaker and weaker each time no one came for her. Finally, she stopped altogether. That was when the screaming started. No one looked back out the window. No one had the heart to. They were torturing her outside. We could hear the vampires speaking, but they spoke in a language that none of us understood. Then one of them said two words I would never forget. "No God." The girl screamed for about ten minutes straight while they clawed at her and bit her before the screams finally died.

But it was actually worse to hear nothing because we knew what that meant. She was dead. She was dead because we didn't help her. I tried to rationalize it in my mind. I knew that we couldn't have gone out there. We couldn't have done anything. It was dangerous enough just sitting in this damn attic without parading around inviting vampires to find us. But that fact didn't make it any less difficult to accept that our inaction had caused her death. _No God._ The weight of that bore down on all of us, Beau especially. He didn't really like to be around people. He always kept himself at a distance from us, even in the attic. But he was fiercely protective of us. Of all of us, he probably slept the least. He didn't trust anyone else to watch over us. That he didn't save that girl was almost more than he could stand.

Another day passed. One of the guys with us, a man named Doug, suddenly stood up and declared that hiding in the attic was stupid. "We need to get out of here," he said. "We're just sitting here waiting to die. We should make a run for it."

"We'd never make it," I said glumly. I didn't really have the heart to argue with him, even though I knew his "run for it" idea was completely idiotic.

"Maybe all of us," he agreed. "But some of us _could_ get away."

"You little shit," Beau said, standing up and striding over to him angrily. "So what, you'll risk all of us just on the off chance that you're one of these lucky few who manages to escape?"

"That's not what I meant," Doug backpedaled.

"Like hell it isn't," Beau said, getting up in his face. "You're a pussy, Doug."

Doug did something very stupid then. He pushed Beau. And all hell broke loose. Beau reached back to punch him, but Eben caught his arm. Beau was a big man and it took Eben and Carter to hold him back while Wilson tried to talk down Doug from getting himself in even deeper. They were all speaking way louder than they should have been. Stella jumped to her feet, whispering harshly for everyone to calm down. I just watched the whole thing. We had made it fourteen days so far without anyone finding us. Leave it to the men to get into some pissing contest that would get us all killed.

Getting to my feet, I walked into the middle of the fray, held up my arms, and said as quietly, but firmly, as I could, "Everyone just shut the fuck up!"

That did it. They were so surprised to hear me say the word fuck that they all actually did shut up. It was kind of amazing. I had to remember that. Beau started chuckling a little and I turned beet red, but my anger didn't lessen any. Turning to Doug, I threw my best bitchy, enraged glare at him and said, "Thanks for your oh-so-great ideas, but why don't you just sit down and let the adults make the decisions, okay?" Doug was, of course, a middle aged man, but I was angry at him and I wanted to make him feel small. He opened his mouth to reply, but I cut him off. "Whatever you're about to say, just forget it. I'm not in the mood. Beau there may be big and tough, but you seriously don't want to mess with me."

Eben, Stella, and Beau all got a strange look on their faces and nodded. "Yeah," Stella agreed, "you really want to avoid pissing her off." I realized that they were all thinking of the little incident in which I had beheaded John Riis, newly made vampire, with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. They hadn't told any of the others about that, which was unfortunate at this particular moment because that fear of me would have come in quite handy. Even though Eben, Stella, and Beau didn't show it, I knew they were a little afraid of me. None of them had expected me to pick up that axe and do what I did. I hadn't even really expected it of myself. And honestly, I was a little scared of me too. I didn't know that I had the capacity to actually behead someone, well, not just someone, a vampire. Still, I creeped myself out a little. I hadn't adequately dealt with how I felt about my actions yet and I knew I probably wouldn't until we were safe again, if that ever happened.

"And you," I said, turning to Beau and pointing my finger at him. He looked at me in surprise. Apparently, he thought I was just going to unleash my fury on Doug. "You need to stop stomping around here. Just calm down. There's nothing we can do about anything. The best we can do is sit here and wait for a blizzard, which hopefully will come soon. Everyone grumbling and picking fights with each other is only going to get us killed."

"She's right," Eben said.

"Whatever," Doug said, extricating himself from Wilson and moving to the other side of the attic. Beau nodded and threw up his hands, moving away. Eben and Carter let him go. I sighed, running a hand through my limp hair. I hadn't washed it in fourteen days. We were all starting to look, and smell, a little ripe. The guys were all sporting beards now, no one actually having the opportunity to shave. Eben's hair was starting to look a little wild. I wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a warm, comfy towel, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So I settled for imagining how good one would feel for a few moments.

Then I noticed Beau sitting by himself again and sighed. Moving over to him, I sat down next to him. "How are things?" He asked. He was pretty gruff with everyone else, but he didn't seem to mind talking to me.

"Alright," I said. "You?"

"Alright," he replied, mirroring my response. We sat in silence. I felt like I was talking to Charlie. Pain shot through me again when I thought of him. Beau seemed to notice it. "You sure you're okay?" He asked.

"I was just thinking of my dad," I answered truthfully.

"You miss him?" Beau asked.

"Yeah," I said. "He lives in Washington."

"So what are you doing here?" Beau asked. Evidently, he wasn't on the town gossip vine or he would have heard all about Eben's little cousin flying in for his wedding.

"Eben is my cousin," I explained. "I came for his wedding."

"Oh," Beau replied. "I hate weddings."

"I'm not so fond of them either," I snorted.

"Fuck," he said suddenly, "I can't stand just sitting here."

"I know," I said quietly. "But we have to."

"We should be doing something," he said.

"Beau," I replied, looking at him. He needed to understand. Eben, Stella, and I could only hold things together so much. Wilson had his dad to watch over. Doug was only out for himself. Denise and Lucy were too terrified to speak up about anything. Carter was helpful, but he always seemed distant. "We need you," I said sincerely.

He looked at me for several long moments, weighing my words. Finally, he nodded. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?" I asked, relieved that he seemed to sense my urgency.

"Okay," he replied again. "I get it."

"Thanks," I said, smiling lightly.

Stella walked up to us then. "It's your turn to sleep Beau," she said. He was about to argue with her that he could stay awake, but he looked pretty tired. So he just nodded and settled back in his blanket.

I moved back over to my sleeping area, which was right next to where Eben and Stella slept. Eben was bunking down for the night. Tonight was my night to sleep too. Stella and Wilson were staying awake. I laid back down in my blanket and tried to relax. The tension had finally started to dissipate from the attic, but I knew that tomorrow would only bring more problems. I just hoped that it started snowing soon. We could only survive in one place for so long before we ran out of food or the vampires found us. I drifted off to sleep. A few hours later, I woke up to a banging sound. I glanced around wildly, expecting to see vampires streaming into the attic. But I just saw everyone sprawled around, asleep. Everyone except Eben, Stella, Wilson, and Isaac. I looked around, trying to find them, and my gaze landed on the open attic door. The ladder was down. A cold sweat broke out on my skin.

I saw that the axe was still laying by Eben's pillow. He had brought it up into the attic with him when we first arrived. I grabbed it, holding it uncertainly in my hands, before tightening my grip around the handle. Then I moved over to the opening in the floor. I couldn't see anything below. I couldn't hear anything either. Where had they all gone? Why would they leave? And, more importantly, why hadn't they told anyone that they were leaving? I started to descend the ladder. I went down facing forward, facing the darkness. My back was to the attic. I was halfway down, still clutching the axe, when someone stepped in front of the ladder. Light shone in through a crack in the boarded up window and landed on his face. It was as pale as death. My heart stopped in my chest. The vampire from the truck was staring up at me, realization dawning in his eyes. He knew where we all were now.

He looked at me hungrily, but there was a war going on in his mind. I knew he wanted to grab me and sink his teeth into my neck. That was obvious. But I didn't know what else he was thinking about until he took one step backward. "Oh shit," I said. He wasn't going to kill me. No, he wasn't going to bite me now because he was going to find the others and tell them where we were. We wouldn't be able to get out fast enough. They would be on us before we could move. He turned toward the door and I did what was probably the stupidest thing I had ever done in my life. I gripped that axe so hard my knuckles turned white and I launched myself off the ladder, smacking directly into his rock hard body.


	8. Of All the Stupid Things

_30 Days of Night_

Chapter Eight: Of All the Stupid Things:

My delusional Edward voice only had time to groan in exasperation before I launched myself from the ladder onto the vampire's back. It was truly the stupidest thing I'd ever done and completely useless as it turned out. I practically bounced off of him like a rubber ball. All I managed to accomplish was that I lost my freakin' axe as it flew across the room and I nailed my head on the door jamb leading into the kitchen. Little stars burst in front of my eyes and I swore I was going to pass out, which really wasn't going to help the whole stopping the vampire from finding his friends and coming back to eat us all thing. After all, that had been the point of my futile little exercise in being a strong, independent woman, as I had once so enthusiastically recommended Angela to be.

I did piss the vampire off though apparently because instead of just leaving the house and finding the rest of his group, he turned back toward me. He didn't smile at me this time. No, he sneered at me. Yeah, I had pissed him off alright. It took me a few moments to figure out why. It wasn't like he had actually thought I was a threat to him. It wasn't like he had actually believed I could stop him from leaving and gathering the rest of his people. No, he had truly thought that I was just some stupid, little girl, some fragile human that he could break oh-so easily. Now, however, he was pissed because he could smell the blood on the axe – the blood that had smeared onto it and stained when I decapitated John Riis. Vampire blood smelled awfully different than human blood and, as quick as a vampire's mind worked, it only took him a few seconds to realize that I had killed one of his kind. Now I wasn't just some stupid, little girl. Now I actually was a threat. And he wanted vengeance.

Yep, launching myself from that ladder was just about the stupidest thing I had ever done. There was no way around that. I'd had good intentions really. I was just trying to protect the people huddled upstairs in the attic. But that wasn't what was going to happen here. Instead, I was facing death…yet again…and I couldn't even see straight. I touched the back of my head and my fingers slicked wet with blood. That wasn't good. They'd been able to smell that for sure. I tried to pull myself into a sitting position, but that only made me feel like I was going to throw up. I was pretty much helpless. Fortunately, the vampire was so intent on giving me his best death glare that he failed to notice the bathroom door behind him was cracked open and Eben was peering out. As the vampire moved forward, crouching low into a predatory stance, Eben emerged from the bathroom.

He looked absolutely terrified, but his eyes were trained on the axe. He knew what he had to do and he had to do it quietly. But he also knew that he smelled so distinctly human that it wasn't very likely he would reach the axe in time to kill the vampire before the vampire had spun around and taken him out. So I did the only thing I could think to do at the moment. I dug my fingers deeper into my head wound until my hand was coated in the sticky, red liquid and I held it out in front of me, attempting to look amazed. "Wow," I murmured, purposefully widening my eyes, looking at the blood like it was the first time I had ever seen any. I was such a terrible actress, but I was trying so hard I think even the Academy would have taken pity on me and given me something for my efforts. "There's so much blood," I said, squishing it in between my fingers to spread the scent around.

It worked so much better than expected. Actually, my plan worked a little too well. Instead of prolonging the experience like the vampire had seemed intent on doing before, his eyes snapped to the blood on my hand with such fierce concentration I really thought he was going to jump me before Eben got a chance to recover the axe. However, I was wrong about that. Edward had said that my blood smelled especially irresistible to him, like it was made especially to torment him. I was his own personal brand of heroin. Well, I knew that I didn't smell _that_ good to every vampire, but apparently I smelled pretty damn good anyway because instead of lunging at me and latching onto the first body part he could find, like I expected, the vampire did something so truly disgusting that I honestly thought it would haunt me for the rest of my horribly short existence.

He took my hand, rather gently I might add, opened his mouth, and licked it. If I hadn't of been so mortified by the action, I might have laughed. As it was, I was overcome by the desire to plunge my hand into boiling water to rid it of the bacteria surely left behind when his tongue traveled so excruciatingly slowly from the base of my wrist to the very tip of my middle finger. A clear path of skin was left in the wake of his tongue and I knew that if Eben didn't hurry up and grab the freakin' axe already the vampire was planning to lick my entire hand clean. That thought made my shudder and I actually gagged. This amused the vampire to no end because he chuckled. It wasn't the musical sound of Alice's laugh or even the slightly growly sound of Emmett's booming laugh. Instead, this was a harsh, guttural sound that resembled more of a snarl than a laugh. Still, I could tell the intention behind it. He thought it was funny that I was so repulsed by what he was doing.

But the important thing, the thing I had to remind myself as I endured the mind numbingly wretched experience of being licked by a vampire, which I wouldn't have found so difficult to endure had it been the _right_ vampire, was that Eben had managed to get to the axe. He picked it up swiftly, swung it back like a baseball bat, and brought it forward with such speed that, before the vampire could turn at hearing the metal whistle through the wind, the axe was already buried in his throat. I scrambled out of the way as the blood started splattering everywhere. Eben ripped out the axe, the pain on his face a clear indicator that he had experienced a similar jolt upon the axe hitting the rock hard skin of the vampire's neck as I had, and plunged it in again. The head came off, plopped onto the ground, and settled a few feet away.

By this time, Stella had snuck out of the bathroom and was helping me to my feet. A wave of dizziness passed over me and I thought I was going to hit the floor, but she kept me upright. Once the dizziness was gone, I smirked at her. "What were you and Eben doing together in the bathroom?" I asked. My voice was still a little weak, but I threw as much innuendo into it as I could.

Stella actually blushed, something I had never seen her do before, and mumbled something unintelligible at the floor. The sound of Eben dismembering the vampire must have woken up Beau because he was charging down the stairs before Stella could formulate an actual response to my question. "What's going on?" He demanded. "What the hell are you guys doing down here and…whoa," he said, finally noticing what Eben was doing. He skidded to a stop on the blood. "Where'd that thing come from?" He asked.

Eben sighed. "Stella and Wilson sort of drifted off a little and Isaac started up," he explained. "Without Wilson there to keep him under control, he got a little antsy or something and decided that he was going to walk to Wainwright."

Beau looked around the room, noticing just as I did that Wilson and Isaac weren't with us. "Well, where are they now?" He asked in confusion.

"I thought Wilson and I had talked Isaac down," Stella jumped in at this point, regret staining her voice. "But Isaac said he wanted to use the bathroom. So we let him. I figured it wouldn't hurt. We warned him not to flush the toilet and then we let him have his privacy. When he was in there a little too long, we decided to check on him," she sighed deeply. "He had climbed out the window."

"Shit," Beau said, looking down at the floor.

"Wilson freaked out and went outside after him. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me down and ran through the door before I could get back up again. I probably should have gone out after him…," she trailed off, but Eben spoke.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "If Wilson wants to risk his life for Isaac, it's one thing. But you had no obligation to go after Wilson once he had made his choice."

"I agree," Beau said.

"What happened then?" I asked. "When I came down here, I didn't see you guys anywhere and then that vampire showed up."

"I woke up and noticed Stella, Wilson, and Isaac were missing," Eben continued the story, "so I came down here to check. I saw Stella on the ground, trying to get up. I could hear the front door swinging open. I was helping her up when we heard someone come in the house. But we didn't hear footsteps, it was just that we heard the door squeak. If it had been Wilson, we would have heard his boots clomping. We both knew right away what it was," Eben said. "But we couldn't get back up into the attic in time and we couldn't close the ladder without it hearing. So we hid in the bathroom."

"And Bella?" Beau asked, turning to me. "Just what in the hell did you think you were doing coming down here?"

"I didn't know there was a vampire down here," I said defensively.

"You did come armed though," Eben pointed out, smirking.

I looked down at the axe and grinned sheepishly. "Well, given the situation…," I said. "I honestly wasn't trying to get injured yet again," I said adamantly.

"But?" Beau questioned.

"I hadn't quite gotten down the ladder yet when I saw the vampire step into view. He looked at me and I knew that he had suddenly figured out where we had been all this time. And when he didn't make a move to lunge at me, when he took a step backward instead, I knew that was gonna go find the others and tell them. I couldn't let that happen," I explained.

"We saw the whole thing," Eben said. "I didn't want to close the door all the way and risk the vampire hearing the click of the handle, so I left it partially open." Eben laughed and shook his head. "You launching yourself at that vampire was actually one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You looked like an enraged kitten or something."

I huffed a little at that comment. I thought my previous axe wielding experience had garnered me a little more respect than that. Apparently not. Beau, however, was not amused. He grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye, his voice deadly serious when he said, "Never do anything like that again. Seriously. You shouldn't throw yourself at danger like you do. Don't you have any sense of self-preservation?" Everyone seemed to notice that little flaw in my character.

"Relax," I said, knowing better than to argue with him. "I never had any intentions of launching myself at him in the first place. I really wasn't looking for trouble. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't actually have a death wish."

"So what were you doing?" Beau asked.

"I knew he was going to tell the others and I had to try to stop him. It was a split second decision, really. Had I thought we would have had any chance of getting out of here before that thing found his friends, I just would have woken everyone up so we could get the hell out. But I knew that wasn't an option."

Beau sighed and ran a hand through his wild hair. If he had been anyone else, I would have suspected that his concern for me was something romantic, or even sexual. But Beau looked at me the same way that Emmett had looked at me, like a little sister. I sighed, suddenly missing Emmett. Hell, I even missed Rosalie. I would have gladly endured her cold, hard gaze for even a few seconds if it just meant that the Cullens were near me again. "Promise me you won't do anything stupid," Beau said, breaking me out of my reverie of the Cullens.

This was familiar. I felt like I had made this promise too many times before. "I promise that I won't _intentionally_ do anything stupid," I swore, holding my hand over my heart. A little grin broke out over Beau's face and I smiled. "I am the clumsiest person in the world, so I can't promise I won't fall down a flight of stairs or something."

"Good enough for me," he said.

"Guys?" A voice whispered from above us. Lucy was hesitantly coming down the ladder. When she saw the blood, she stopped and turned her eyes away. "Do I want to know what's going on?" She asked.

"No," Eben said.

"Okay then," she replied. "I just thought I'd let you all know…since, by the way, you're not really being all that quiet…it's snowing like all hell outside."

Those were the exact words we had all been waiting for. Beau charged back up the ladder, Lucy scrambling out of his way. I was right behind him, only slower and a little less coordinated because the walls were still spinning a little. Lucy seemed to notice how I was swaying because she grabbed one of my arms and helped me up. Eben and Stella were behind me. They were whispering to each other, but I could hear them clearly. "It's amazing isn't it?" Eben was asking her. "How Beau's taken to Bella? The whole time I've known the guy I've barely been able to get three words out of him."

"I know," Stella whispered back. "He really adores her."

I smiled a little. I didn't have Emmett here with me, but at least I had Beau. We all huddled around the window, watching the blizzard. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life. I used to hate snow. _Anything wet and cold_. Edward had found that funny at the time. But now, snow was the greatest thing ever. I officially loved snow. I wanted to run out in it and scream at the top of my lungs that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Of course, that would have drawn some unwanted attention. So, instead, I settled for the big, goofy grin that stretched up my lips in perhaps the first real smile I had smiled since Edward left. It wasn't that my feelings toward snow had changed that dramatically. It was just what this particular snow represented. Everyone else was smiling too when I tore my gaze from those gorgeous white flakes to look at the others.

"You know what this means?" Stella asked, laughing as she looked over at me.

"The Utilidor," I said.

"That's right," she replied. "The Utilidor. We may have a shot at surviving this after all."


	9. The Vision

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to whoever that belongs to.

Chapter Nine: The Vision:

Well, the blizzard may have been beautiful in its own blinding, windy, freezing kind of way, but it was damn cold. Even with the parka zipped up to my chin and the fur lined hood covering my face, I still felt my skin burning from the intensity of the piercing wind. I couldn't imagine actually living in a place like Barrow. And I had thought that Forks was cold. I had no idea what cold really was. Now I knew. We left the attic after quickly gathering together what meager provisions we had left. After ushering everyone away from the dismembered vampire at the bottom of the ladder, we started out into the snow, which was already collecting halfway to my knees. I was holding Stella's hand; she was holding Eben's. We were all chained together so we wouldn't lose anyone in the snow. No one said anything about Wilson and Isaac. Stella didn't need to explain what had happened. They were gone; everyone knew it and everyone accepted it. No one really had expected all of us to survive this anyway.

I felt like we had been walking for miles. I had to close my eyes because the snow was whipping in the wind so fast it actually burned when it hit my skin. Stumbling along behind Stella, praying that I didn't trip and take out the whole line of people, I couldn't help but think about the one vampire I actually wanted to see at that moment. Well, not just one actually – I wanted to see seven vampires. The Cullens had left to keep me safe. I was about as far from safe as was possible. I wondered what they would think if they knew about what was going on. I wondered if Alice had seen the vampires attack Barrow. But, if she had, they would have come. I was sure of that. So she must not have seen. The only way she wouldn't have seen anything is if she wasn't looking. That thought ripped open the hole in my chest again. It made the pain around the ragged edges flare up like someone had poured alcohol all over my wounds – the real ones and the imaginary ones.

I guess Edward didn't want anyone in the Cullen family to have anything to do with me anymore. But one thing I knew for certain. Edward may have wanted to make a clean break of things, but he had failed miserably. Not only had I completely not gotten over him in any respect, but I was in even more danger now than I had been when the Cullens were around. No doubt about it, I was a danger magnet. Everything I did seemed to put me in harm's way. If it wasn't tripping over myself or almost getting crushed by a van, it was inadvertently walking into a vampire attack. Edward may not have wanted me anymore, but I still wanted him. And if for some miraculous reason, God decided to smile down on us poor, little humans in Barrow and let us live through this nightmare, I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to find Edward and Alice and all the rest of them if for nothing more than to have the opportunity to give them a piece of my mind. I had a lot to say at this point. A hundred years wouldn't even be enough to get through the speech I had forming in my mind.

I'd been through depressed and now I was getting angry. After all, I thought to myself, whose fault was it that I was in Barrow in the first place? Charlie never would have thought to send me here if not for the fact that I'd been walking around the house like a zombie for three months. And even if he had, if Edward had never left, he would have come with me and he would have been able to protect me from the vampires that had been trying to eat us. As it was, I was in Barrow, Alaska because of Edward. Perhaps it was a little unfair to blame him for all of this, but I'd been living on Spam and crackers for a couple of days and I still hadn't showered and my head wound was starting to throb dully in the cold.

I still couldn't get the image of that vampire licking my hand out of my mind and, if I ever saw any of the Cullens again, that was going to be one of the first things I told them about my hellish time in Barrow. Oh yeah, I was going to make sure they knew just how awful it was and just how easily they could have prevented all of it if they had never left. I knew eventually my anger would run out and I would go back to just missing him…to missing all of them. I could already feel the anger ebbing slightly. As it did, the pain only grew worse. I really had to stop thinking about him. Especially now, when my life depended on me not spacing out.

We finally reached the general store. The plan was to grab enough supplies to last us through the rest of the thirty days and then make a dash for the Utilidor while the blizzard held. As long as we could stay obscured by the wind and snow, we had a chance of reaching the safest place in Barrow. The vampires would think we were still in town and we could ride out the rest of the thirty days in hiding. I stepped into the store and sighed, pushing the hood back over my head. My hair hung limp and wet and I impatiently brushed it out of my face. It was nice to be out of the storm, nice to be able to open my eyes again without little specks of snow stinging them. The store wasn't exactly what you'd call warm inside, but it was better than being outside and I was grateful for the few moments of shelter that it offered.

"Alright, guys," Eben said, addressing us quietly. "Let's grab as much stuff as we can and get the hell out of here. Lucy, Denise," he said, turning to the two women, "get some canned meat, fruit, and vegetables. Gus, Carter, batteries and flashlights. Beau and Stella, grab a few cases of water. You and I," he said, looking over at me, "we'll see if we can't rustle up some medical supplies and flares."

I nodded, following after Eben as we all dispersed through the store. "How's your head?" Eben asked me as I followed him down the school supply aisle.

"Alright," I said. He paused and looked back at me.

"Still bleeding?" He asked.

I reached back and gingerly touched the wound. But there was no blood on my hand when I pulled it back. "No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm good."

Eben smiled at me and grabbed a knapsack from one of the shelves. He also took one for himself. We turned the corner into the pharmacy section and he indicated to the row of medicines. "Stuff that bag with as much as you can. I'm gonna try to find some flares so we can signal some planes or helicopters or something when this is all said and done."

I nodded aimlessly, still lost in my own thoughts of the Cullens to care much about what Eben was saying. So I didn't notice the commotion until the vampire was already on Carter. Apparently, she had been feeding on a clerk in the back of the store when we came in. All of my bravado, all of my courage and recklessness in the face of danger, vanished when I saw her. She was just a little girl. She had pigtails tied up in pink ribbons and she was wearing a white sundress that was stained pink with dried blood. The fresh blood had soaked through the front of it, staining it a deep red that was almost purple. Of course, she was adorable. Or she would have been, except for the blood smeared all over her chin and lips and the murderous glint in her red eyes. I wasn't the only person who was transfixed by her. Everyone else seemed to be too, except for Eben and Beau. They were trying to pull her off of Carter.

She knocked the axe out of Eben's hands and it flew through the store, landing at Stella's feet. But Stella was too stunned to notice. Terrifying vampires we were used to and, yes, this girl was terrifying in her own way. She was wild, thrashing about trying to dislodge Eben and Beau, while her teeth were still sunk into Carter's neck. But she was also just a little girl. She had been changed so young; she would remain that way forever, a doll with an insatiable lust for human blood. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was just so wrong in so many ways. I didn't understand how a vampire, even as godless as these vampires seemed to be, could change a little girl. She hadn't even had the chance to live her life. She looked to be no older than ten.

Eben started yelling for help. But I literally couldn't move. My feet were planted in the ground. The thought of trying to kill her was more than I could take. "Stella!" Eben yelled. "Stella grab the fucking axe!"

Stella didn't seem to hear him at first. But, gradually, she came around. She glanced down at the axe at her feet and back up at the little girl. Her mouth dropped in horror when she realized what she was going to have to do. She bent down and picked up the axe, slowly at first, as though she wanted to delay the inevitable as long as possible. But Eben started yelling again and she straightened up, the axe in her hand, and determination sparkling in her eyes. She looked wildly beautiful in that moment. Eben and Beau managed to haul the girl off of Carter, with some considerable difficulty, and Stella braced herself for impact. Two strokes and the girl's head was off. A few more and the pieces were scattered.

Carter was dead. His glazed over eyes were staring up at the ceiling. "Is he…well, is he going to turn?" Eben asked, looking over at me.

I shrugged a little, still not quite able to believe what had just happened. "I don't know for sure," I said. "But I don't know if the venom had time to spread. He died pretty quickly."

"Are you alright?" Eben asked, turning back to his wife. She was staring vacantly down at the dismembered girl. Denise and Lucy were crying into each other's shoulders. "Stella?" He prodded, laying his hand gently on her shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes unwilling to focus for a few moments, before she slowly nodded.

"I'm okay," she said, but her voice was quiet and shaky. It was one thing to behead and dismember a full grown, scary looking vampire. It was quite another thing to do it to a child. I didn't envy Stella's position.

"You sure?" Eben asked, his eyes wide with concern.

"I think I need a few minutes," she murmured, handing him the axe. She wandered away from the group, sitting on the clerk's stool and running a shaky hand through her hair.

"Shit," Eben muttered.

"Well, fuck," Beau said. I thought he was just reinforcing Eben's comment, but one look on his face told me otherwise. He was staring out of the front window of the store. I followed his gaze and groaned.

"The blizzard stopped," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. But everyone could hear me. It was so quiet in the store now. The only other sounds were the muffled crying of the women clutching to each other and Doug gently scraping his foot against the floor in embarrassment for not helping out and in sadness for Carter's death.

Eben looked out of the window and the hope died in his eyes. He knew as well as I did that we wouldn't be able to survive in the general store. It was too exposed, too open. We were sitting ducks as long as we stayed there. "What are we gonna do now, Eben?" Lucy asked, her eyes wide with fear. Denise was still crying into her shoulder. Eben just looked over at her, at a loss for what to say. You could feel the life flow out of the room. When we had entered only a short time before, everyone had been buzzing with excitement. Things had been looking our way. But now, we were in more trouble than any of us really knew.

My eyes were still glued to the window, so I didn't notice when Stella walked up beside me. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw her there, staring at me, out of the corner of my eye. I actually had to stifle a scream. "What is it?" I asked lowly. No one else heard me. She grabbed my jacket sleeve and pulled me away from the others. I knew that she'd had some kind of epiphany because her eyes were shining bright with hope while everyone else was slumped over, unable to comprehend what was happening.

"I had a thought," she said. "And I don't quite know how this works, but I think we should give it a try."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. She was still flustered and her sentences weren't quite coming out coherently.

"Alice," Stella said abruptly. "You said that Alice Cullen could see the future, right?" She asked.

"That's right," I confirmed.

"Well," Stella began, uncertainly at first, but gaining confidence as she spoke, "you said Alice could see the future based on people's decisions. And the visions come randomly, right?"

"I think so," I replied.

"What do you think would happen if you _tried_ to send her a vision?" Stella asked.

I thought about it for a moment. "I'm not really sure," I said hesitantly.

"Say for instance, you made a decision. Something that could be dangerous and you thought about it enough and you thought about Alice enough, do you think she would see it?" Stella asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"But it would be worth trying?" She prodded.

I sighed. "I guess so. I don't see what harm it could do. Worst case scenario, she doesn't see what I'm trying to communicate."

"And best case scenario?" Stella asked, that gleam intensifying.

I smiled a little. "They see what's going on and try to help."

"That's right," Stella nodded.

"But what kind of well thought out decision could I make that would be that dangerous?" I asked. "Everything I've done so far has been instinctual. I've just been reacting to things. It's all been dangerous, but I haven't really thought much about anything I've done."

"How reliable is she with snap decisions?" She asked.

"Not very," I said.

"Then maybe that's why she hasn't seen any of this yet," Stella replied.

"But then why didn't she see anything when I decided to come to Barrow in the first place?" I asked.

"Because maybe those vampires hadn't decided to come here yet. Not for sure. Maybe they were toying with the idea, but they didn't know. And when you decided to come here, maybe it still would have been safe. But at some point that changed," Stella said. "And if she wasn't really thinking about you, she might not have known. But if you try to send her a message…"

"Maybe she'll get it," I finished for her.

"Alright," Eben said, interrupting our conversation. "We can't say here. That much I think we all know. The Utilidor is too far for us to try for now. We'll have to come up with another place."

"We could split up," Doug suggested.

"That's a monumentally horrible idea," Denise countered.

"I agree," Eben said. "We need to stick together."

"I don't think there's safety in numbers when it comes to vampires," Beau said. "I think that just makes us more of a target."

Eben glared over at him for a few moments. "Alright," he said. "We vote on it then. Who thinks we should stick together?" He asked.

And then it hit me. This was the perfect moment. If we were all splitting up, I would have to make a decision about where I was going. I would even have to plan a little. It would be one of those decisions that Alice would be able to see – well thought out and purposeful. I think Eben was expecting Stella and I to raise our hands when he, Denise, and Lucy did. But we didn't. She was thinking the same thing that I was. He gazed over at us, astonished and then angry. The emotions flitted so clearly over his face. We had betrayed him. "And those that want to split up?" Doug asked. He, Beau, Stella, and I raised our hands. Eben scoffed and turned away, shaking his head. His side had lost.

"Fine," he said. "Can we at least agree that we'll all try to find a way to get to the Utilidor? I don't care how you get there or how long it takes. Just try to get there, okay?" Everyone nodded at this. I turned away from the others at this point. I rummaged through the school supply section until I had a pen and a piece of paper. I wasn't sure this worked, but I had to try something. If Stella was right and I could send Alice a message, we might just have a chance.

"The police station," Stella said over to me quickly. "You, Eben, and I are going to try to get to the police station to hide for a while until it's safe to move again."

I nodded and quickly scribbled the words "Vampires, Barrow, Alaska" on the paper. I stared down at it, concentrating as hard as I could on my decision to leave the general store. I thought about running out into the open, exposed, my scent carrying on the wind to the vampires waiting to attack. I thought about making it to the police station. I thought about the three of us locking ourselves in, trying to bide our time until we had another opening to get to the Utilidor. And I thought about the words I had written on the page. My decision was made. I had planned it out in advance this time. I was leaving the relative safety of the general store for the dangerous trek to the police station a couple of blocks away. I had no idea what might happen in that span of time. But if anyone did, it would be Alice.

………………………………

_Alice POV_

I had done what Edward asked. Reluctantly, but I did it. I tried to never think of Bella. I tried to keep my mind from wandering to my best friend. I still considered her my best friend, even though I knew she probably hated me for leaving. I wanted so desperately to peek in on her, just to check to make sure she was okay, to see how her life was progressing. But I purposefully blocked her from my mind. Edward knew that there were a myriad of things I could see that would prompt him to go back to Forks. And he wanted to avoid going back there. He was just so convinced that leaving was in Bella's best interests. I didn't think so. But she was Edward's mate, not mine. I could only hope that he would come around and see the folly of his actions. I could only hope that he would realize before it was too late that he and Bella were meant to be together. I had seen it so many times. I still didn't understand why he wasn't willing to accept it.

I hadn't been thinking at all about Bella. I was draped over the couch, my legs in Jasper's lap as he and Emmett played some video game on the flat screen that involved a lot of shooting. Emmett was yelling at him about not toying with people's emotions during competitive events. Every time Emmett started to win, Jasper would throw a wave of lethargy and depression at him. Rosalie was sitting next to Emmett, reading a car magazine and chuckling occasionally at Emmett when he would launch into a string of profanities. I had been trying to read _Vogue_, but I couldn't focus. I could hear Carlisle turning the pages of a book in his study and Esme flitting around the house dusting things, even though nothing was ever dirty. She was handling Edward's absence very poorly. Every few minutes, my thoughts would drift back to Edward. He was in South America, trying to forget about Bella, even though we all knew that he never would. We were in Montana, living in a house out in the middle of the forest. There were no humans for miles. We didn't even have to try to blend in here. We could exist without anyone knowing it.

I flipped the page, attempting to read about the latest in handbags when it hit me. My eyes glazed over, my mouth drooped open a little. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I could hear Jasper saying my name. I could feel him rubbing soothing circles on my back. But my eyes were transfixed on the scene unfolding in front of me. I saw the inside of a store. It was dark, so dark a human would have had a difficult time seeing. I could see out of the window and it was night. The lights were off. There were people standing around. There was blood on the floor. A man was holding an axe. Then I saw Bella. She looked horrible, gaunt, tired, with big black circles under her eyes. She was scribbling on a piece of paper. _Vampires_. _Barrow, Alaska._ Then the vision changed. I saw her running through the snow. I saw vampires chasing after another man as she slipped away unnoticed. The vampires, they didn't matter so much. The blood, it didn't matter much either. What truly mattered was the look of deep, numbing fear on Bella's face as she ran.

Then I saw Jasper's face. The vision disappeared. He was kneeling in front of me, my face cupped in his hands. "Alice?" He asked, his voice gentle. He was sending me waves of calm. I tried to grab onto them to quell the panic rising up in me. "Alice, baby, what did you see?" He asked, quietly.

I looked up and saw Rosalie, Emmett, Carlisle, and Esme staring at me. I think they all knew what I had seen. They had all been waiting for this in one way of another. Our lives without Bella were truly dead. It was like we were just waiting for her to come find us somehow. But I couldn't quite think of what to say. The visions were always so disorienting. So, I said the first word that came to my mind. "Bella."


	10. Immersion in Darkness

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles .

Chapter Ten: Immersion into Darkness:

I tried to delay everyone as much as I could. I tried to give Alice enough time to get my message and prepare to come to Alaska. I didn't know where the Cullens were. I guess I had hoped that they were somewhere close. I remembered Edward talking about another clan similar to them that lived in Denali. I managed to stall our departure for a few hours. I convinced everyone to wait to see if the snow would pick up again before committing to the plan to split up and brave the night. But in the end, they all had their minds set on what they were doing. I think really that we all knew we were going to die and we all were just trying to figure out a way to do it on our own terms. Hovering in the background was the agreement to try to meet up at the Utilidor. That plan, which had once been our lifeline of hope, was just an empty promise now. We didn't really have control of anything. We hadn't since the thirty days of night began. That was the annoying thing about vampires. They always seemed to take control of everything. But it was almost as if making the decision to walk out of the general store, to try our luck, to do something active instead of passive, was our way of taking back the control. We all knew how it would end. At least it was an end that we had chosen.

Eben wasn't happy about any of it. He still thought that we could survive. He was like Charlie in that respect, very stubborn about things. Every second that ticked by I felt my anxiety growing. I wasn't sure how long I would have to wait to find out if Alice had gotten my message or not. But I felt that the longer I had to wait the more likely it was that she hadn't seen me. Finally, I couldn't stall anyone anymore. Doug was pacing around the store. He grabbed one of the bags of food and said, "That's it. I'm going. I can't stay here anymore. I'm sorry, Bella." He looked at me. "I don't want to wait any longer to see if another storm is trailing on the end of that one."

I didn't know where Doug was planning to go. Denise and Lucy were going to make a dash for the high school. It was a stepping stone on the way to the Utilidor and it was relatively safe. Plenty of places to hide. Beau had been right when he said that sticking together in a vampire attack probably wasn't the wisest idea. A clump of humans had to smell much stronger than individuals dispersed throughout the town. Still, I couldn't help but feel like I would never see most of these people again. Beau still hadn't made his plans known and I wondered at the pain I felt when I thought of him out there on his own somewhere. Eben and Stella gathered some supplies together. We were ready to try to get to the police station. I stood by the door waiting for everyone as Eben shook hands with the men and lightly hugged the women. Stella did the same. I was scanning the rooftops, trying to see if I could spot any vampires moving around. I couldn't.

I knew Beau was standing behind me. I could feel his shadow hulking over my tiny frame. But I didn't want to turn around. I knew I would start crying. Finally, he laid a hand on my shoulder and sighed. "Okay," he said. "I'll stick with you guys."

I turned sharply at that, looking up into his eyes. He smiled at me and I launched myself at him, hugging him tightly. It reminded me of one of Emmett's bear hugs. Beau wrapped his long, thick arms around me and rested his chin on my head. "I don't want you to be out there alone," I said, my words muffled in his jacket.

"And I don't trust Eben enough to keep you safe," Beau said, chuckling a little. "I don't really like people, Bella," he said as I pulled away. "I never really have. I've always been a loner. But there's just something about you. You remind me of the little sister I should have had."

I smiled and briefly wondered why every single man I ever met instinctively felt the need to protect me. Did I seriously look that weak? I had decapitated a vampire for God's sake. I wasn't just some little girl. Of course, I did have a bad track record. One moment of irrational courage didn't quite make up for that. Ultimately, I decided not to be offended. "Thanks," I said. He nodded and looked down at the floor, obviously uncomfortable with the intensity of the feelings we had been sharing.

The others joined us and we all split into groups. Eben opened the door slowly and poked his head out. A blast of cold air hit me and I zipped up my jacket again. "Looks clear," he muttered. That didn't mean it was. He didn't need to say that though. He left the store first, followed by Beau. Stella and I were behind him. Lucy and Denise trailed closely behind us, while Doug brought up the rear. The police station was in sight. We tried to stay low to the ground and move quickly. The group was about to disperse when I heard a scream pierce the air from behind me. I looked back and gasped. The vampires were lined up on the roof of the general store. They had been there the whole time. They had known that we were in the store and they had just been waiting. Playing with us. They weren't hungry anymore; no, they had eaten practically the entire town. Now they just wanted to have a little sport. They were waiting to see what we'd do. Realization dawned on me and I felt sick to my stomach. I gagged a little in my throat, clutching my stomach. I could barely breathe. We humans were such interesting little toys for them.

One of the vampires jumped from the roof and landed on Doug. But he didn't bite him. He just slashed him with his sharp fingernails. The other vampires hooted with laughter when Doug yelped and fell backwards. Half of Doug's face was covered with blood. Then the other vampires started jumping down, surrounding him. It was a little like something you would see on the Discovery Channel. The lions had taken down the elk and now they were circling it, toying with it a little, like cats do with birds, before they were going to eat it. I'm not sure how it happened really. But Stella grabbed my hand and we started running. I think we were all running in the same direction when we started, but then we weren't anymore. I didn't know where I was going. I was just stumbling along behind Stella as she pulled me.

We got separated from Eben and Beau. Lucy and Denise were right behind us. Somehow they kept up with us even though Stella ran like an Olympic sprinter. She would have been much faster too without me dragging her down. I almost dripped her several times. I don't know how I kept my footing. I'm not even sure my feet touched the ground that often. I felt like I was sailing behind her. Stella stopped suddenly and I smashed into her. I think she realized then that Eben and Beau weren't with us anymore. She had been running away from the police station toward the Utilidor. But Eben and Beau had branched off the other way. They had to have known what they were doing. They had to have known that they were going to lose us in the fray. Then it dawned on me that maybe they wanted to. Stella searched for Eben, her eyes wild.

I think she realized the same thing because her mouth settled into a hard line when she finally spotted him. He and Beau were running the opposite way, toward the ditch driller. They weren't running to try to get away from the vampires. No, they were running toward the one thing that could sufficiently distract them enough to allow us to get away. They were going to sacrifice themselves so that we could escape The vampires were still making sport of Doug, not even remotely concerned with us. They slashed at him, laughing when his blood spurted out against the snow. It looked so bright against the white, almost like it wasn't real. He was kneeling on the ground, doubled over in pain, making noises no human being should ever have to make. I knew in that moment that the vampires would let us get away again, just to give us a little hope only to tear it away. That was so much more fun than just draining every person in sight. With their thirst satiated, they were even more depraved. All that time we thought we had been clever hiding in the attic. I was beginning to think that they had known we were there the whole time.

"Eben!" Stella yelled. The vampires were making so much noise and Doug was screaming so loudly, that her words seemed to be lost. But Eben heard her.

He turned around, smiling at her, his eyes crinkling like Charlie's. He was smiling at her as though it would be the last time he did and then he yelled back, "You know the plan. Go!"

Stella hesitated for a moment. I pulled on her hand. If they were going to sacrifice themselves for us I was going to make damn sure it wasn't for nothing. "Come on!" I said, pulling her along now. I dragged her several feet before she came to herself again. Then she started running and I was once again being dragged by her. She still hadn't let go of my hand. Denise and Lucy followed behind us. No one dared say anything. No one dared breathe really. I could see the Utilidor peaking up over a snowy hill, but I didn't know how far away it was. I tripped several times, but each time Lucy helped me to my feet again. No one looked back. We didn't want to see if we were being followed. We didn't want to see if the vampires had Eben or Beau. We heard the ditch driller rumble to life at one point. I was tempted to turn around, just to peek, but I knew I wouldn't survive it if I saw the vampires tearing into either one of them. So I ran. I ran until my lungs burned and legs felt wobbly and weak. And even though I was moving pretty fast for me, I knew that I was crawling in comparison to how fast the vampires could run. I remembered how fast Edward could run, how the world seemed to blend together while I clung to his back. No matter how fast I ran, I could never match that.

It was good that I didn't peek. If I had, I would have seen the vampire that broke away from the group and trotted slowly after us, discreetly following us, all the way to the Utilidor. And I didn't need to see that. I didn't need to know. When death finally found me, I wanted it to catch me so off guard I wouldn't even see it coming. We arrived at the rather imposing steel structure, all of us shaking from the physical exertion of the run. We hadn't eaten much in the past few days and what we had been eating didn't have much in the way of nutritional value. The generator at the Utilidor was still running. It had enough gas to last the month, another security precaution – it was the town's emergency shelter. Stella knew the code for the door and got it open for us. She hadn't said anything yet since leaving Eben behind. But I knew that she was hurting. She closed the door and locked it, even though the lock wouldn't stop a vampire, and silently led us down several long hallways until we reached the trash compactor. There was an office on the other side of the room and we all went in there. Through the window in the office, we could see the town.

Stella immediately grabbed a pair of high powered binoculars from off of the desk, went to the window, and put them to her eyes. While Lucy and Denise searched the room for anything that would be useful, I leaned against the wall next to Stella. Denise went back out into the main room, hoping to find something useful in among the things waiting to be compacted. "See anything?" I asked, still breathless from the run. We were all beyond being relieved that we had escaped the vampires. I think we all knew that we hadn't really escaped them. I think we all knew now that whatever illusion we'd had of control was really just that – an illusion. We had never been in control. We had only escaped the vampires in town because they wanted us to escape. They wanted to hunt us down again. It was so much more fun that way. Like James had said in the ballet studio, it had been too easy for him to get me there. He needed more entertainment. Vampires were so _easily distracted_ after all.

And we would remain alive in the Utilidor for as long as they wanted us to. When they decided that we had grown to boring, they would just kill us like Doug and move on again to the next person or the next town. Whatever their plan was. The only glimmer of hope left was that Alice and the Cullens would find us before the vampires got bored enough to want to kill us instead of torturing us. "I see him," Stella said suddenly, breaking the silence.

"You see who?" I asked, dragged too suddenly from my thoughts to understand what she was talking about.

"Eben, I see him. And Beau," she declared. I grabbed the binoculars from her and trained them to where she was pointing. They had run the ditch driller into the crowd of vampires evidently. Then they had crashed it into a building. The vampires looked pissed. Doug was lying dead in the snow now. I could see Eben and Beau hiding underneath of a wreck on the side of the road. Two cars had run into each other and both were flipped upside down. One of them had landed on top of a little indentation in the snow. Beau and Eben were resting in that. The vampires were all around them, but for some reason, they didn't seem to notice them. It was almost like they couldn't smell them.

"What the hell," I muttered. "They're going right by them."

Stella took the binoculars back. "I know," she said excitedly.

"Why can't they smell them?" I asked, more to myself than her. She shrugged.

"I have no idea," she said.

"How long can they stay out there?" I asked. "I mean, how long can they survive in the cold like that with no shelter to block the wind and snow?"

"Not long," Stella said, her excitement visibly lessening. "But they're alive for now."

_For now_. "Come on, Alice," I whispered to myself. "Where are you?"

A scream ripped through the Utilidor and we all froze. "Where's Denise?" Stella asked, glancing around the room.

"She went out there," Lucy said, her eyes wide as she nodded toward the door that led back to the trash compactor. We all stared at it. Another scream.

"Shit," I said, moving over to the door.

"What are you doing?" Stella asked, grabbing my hand as it landed on the door handle.

"I'm going out there," I replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"To do what?" Stella asked.

"I don't know," I replied, yanking the door open. "But we're dead if we go out there and we're dead if we stay in here, so I'm going to meet my death head on."

As it turned out, I didn't have to. A vampire, the one that I hadn't seen so stealthily following us from town, had grabbed Denise and was biting her from behind. Blood was streaming from the wound on her neck. She stared at me with pleading eyes, her hands wrapped around the vampire's arm. But she couldn't shake his grip on her. Then something in her eyes changed. She tried to say something, but I couldn't understand her at first. She started thrashing wildly, she and the vampire feeding on her tumbling dangerously close to the garbage compactor. Then I realized what she wanted.

I looked behind me and saw a red switch on the wall. I wondered if the machine still worked, if the generator had enough power to turn it on. Denise nodded at me when she saw me look at the switch. The light was starting to go out of her eyes. He was draining her. Reaching back, I hit the switch. The machine whirred to life. With the last of her energy, Denise threw herself at the whirring, crunching teeth of the compactor. The vampire, so distracted by the warm blood flowing into his mouth, didn't notice, not until his legs hit the side of the machine and he started tumbling toward it. Denise went in head first, the vampire following after her. He managed to grab the side of the machine, but he couldn't stop the momentum of his body. The steel teeth ripped into him like they ripped into Denise. I had to close my eyes. It was the most gruesome thing I had ever seen.

I didn't open my eyes again until the machine stopped. Throwing it into operation like that had drained the generator of the rest of its gas reserves. The sudden silence was completely overwhelming. Stella and Lucy were standing behind me, having watched the whole scene. They looked green. I probably looked green too. There was so much blood. The vampire had been ripped in half, most of him chewed up by the steel teeth and deposited wherever the stuff went that got thrown in the compactor. The other half had slipped to the ground and was twitching a little bit. That was also completely disturbing. Lucy turned away and started throwing up in the other room. Stella laid a hand on my shoulder. "I'm gonna need some serious counseling," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes.

"God, we're all gonna die," Lucy moaned from the other room. "There's nothing we can do. We're all gonna die."

I frowned a little, my eyes glued to the still twitching vampire. And I suddenly knew. Just like that. Lucy was right. We all were going to die. But we didn't have to. Not all of us anyway. Some of us could survive. All it would take was one little sacrifice. And it wasn't that much of a sacrifice at all. Not really. Because it was something that I had wanted ever since I found out about the Cullens. Eternity. Vampires had venomous body fluids. All I would need was a little. I shrugged out of Stella's grasp and went back into the other room. I knew I had seen a medical kit somewhere. I found it in an open locker in the corner of the room and pulled it out. Yanking open the lid, I rummaged through the supplies until my eyes landed on exactly what I had been searching for. A needle.

Lucy was eyeing me warily. Stella was staring at me from the doorway, not entirely sure what to make of my actions. I'm not sure I really knew what I was doing at that moment. All I could think about was Eben and Beau lying under the wreck outside, waiting for the vampires to find them, and Stella and Lucy and I trapped in the Utilidor, waiting for the vampires to find us. Maybe Alice was coming to Barrow. Maybe she wasn't. But if she was, I was going to try to buy her some more time. I pushed passed Stella, slipping on the blood on the floor as I advanced toward the garbage compactor. I had grown so used to the smell of blood by now that it didn't even bother me anymore. There was a time when I would have been passed out on the floor from it. Finally, Stella found her voice, "What are you doing?" She asked wildly.

"Something very, very irrational," I said. I kneeled down in the blood next to the vampire. I didn't care that the blood was getting all over me. Nothing really mattered anymore. The needle wouldn't pierce the vampire's skin, but it didn't have to. The vampire's body had been shorn in half and all I had to do was stick the needle into the gore to get some of the vampire's venomous blood out. It filled the needle and I felt a strange sense of anticipation fill me. I didn't quite know what to expect of all of this. I didn't know how long it would take or what I would be like afterward. I didn't really know if it would work.

"Bella," Stella said placatingly, like she was speaking to a lunatic. She moved toward me, her hand outstretched in front of her. "You better stop right now if you're doing what I think you're doing."

"We don't have another choice," I said, looking up at her defiantly. I was holding the needle in one hand, my other hand on my hip. I tried to look tough and confident, but inside I was really just quaking with fear.

"Sure we do," Stella said, but even she knew that wasn't true. Her words rang hollow.

"We're too weak," I argued. "Too human. We can't fight them. But that's our only chance. If I do this," I said, motioning to the needle. "I'll be strong enough."

"It's someone else's blood, Bella," Stella replied. "You could catch something. You don't even know if it'll work."

"We have to try something," I said. "Eben and Beau are sitting ducks out there. I can save them," I said, my voice taking on a hysterical edge. I was starting to lose it a little. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I always had been. Maybe that was why I was so good at accepting things normal people wouldn't accept.

Stella sighed and folded her arms across her chest. "And what happens if it works and you wake up wanting to kill us?"

"I won't," I promised.

"You don't know that," Stella countered.

"It's too late," I shook my head. "I've made up my mind."

She looked at me quietly for a few moments. Then her eyes softened. "Do you want me to leave while you do it?" She asked.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "Just stay with me. But don't get too close." I sat down on the other side of the room from her, my back to the wall. I shrugged off my jacket and rolled up my shirt sleeve. She sat down, mimicking my position and watched me, her eyes never leaving my face. I think a part of her thought it should have been her doing what I was doing. But we both knew that I was the one without anything to lose. I was the one who already felt dead inside anyway. Stella had a husband, a life. I had nothing left.

So here I was, dying in the place of someone I loved…again. Only this time, I'd had a choice in the matter and I'd made it. Agonizing over decisions had always been the most difficult part for me. But I'd made my choice now. I could relax and, for a few moments, I could indulge in a little mental montage of my life – short as it'd been. I was eighteen years old. I'd only ever been in love once, with a vampire of all people. A vampire who'd left me. Of course, I'd hoped my mental montage would be a little more positive than this, but all I could think about was Edward.

Edward staring at me blackly my first day of biology at Forks High School, as I knew now, desperately trying not to drain me dry in front of the entire class.

Edward pulling me out of the way of Tyler's van with that slightly terrified look in his eyes like all the sudden he knew his life was over.

Edward standing in the sunlight in the meadow with millions of tiny diamonds reflecting off of his skin. _Beautiful_.

Our first kiss. My reaction to our first kiss. I could still feel a wave of desire roll over me. Every kiss afterward, how badly I wanted him, how badly I wanted to be like him.

I tried not to remember the pain. After all, my last moments montage was supposed to be pleasant and all that. But remembering the good moments always made me think of the bad.

Edward telling me he didn't want me anymore and, just like that, they were gone. Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, Esme, Carlisle. My entire family, just gone.

Every second – every excruciating second after – when all I felt was that someone was ripping me apart inch by inch until I had a hole in my chest that constantly oozed pain.

Dying in the place of someone I loved, well, that was the easy part. The hard part was what would come after. I looked up into Stella's eyes and I knew that I had to do this. It was the only way. They would kill all of us and no one would ever know what had happened here. It would be like Barrow, Alaska had just disappeared off of the map. Someone had to live, if only that the rest of us wouldn't be forgotten.

Charlie. The thought of my father made me hesitate. I didn't know what would happen after this, but I knew that I would probably never see him again. I hadn't even gotten a chance to say good-bye. I would never graduate high school. He would never walk me down the aisle at my wedding. I would never be a mother. And though all of those things made me incredibly sad, I knew that I was making the right decision. "If this doesn't go right, tell my father I love him," I said to her. She nodded. "Tell him anything. Just don't tell him what really happened."

I plunged the needle into my arm and watched as the red liquid shot into my veins. And that's when the burning started.

…………………………….

_Alice POV_

We were on our way to Alaska, six of us piled into a tiny private plane, speeding along above the ground. I had left so many messages for Edward I'd lost track of how many times I'd called him. But he never picked up his phone. He only spoke to any of us when he wanted to and apparently he didn't want to now. Jasper kept sending me waves of calm. Well, he was sending them to everyone in the plane. We were all panicking. Emmett was sitting next to the pilot, an extremely nervous man who kept glancing over at him out of the corner of his eye. I didn't blame the poor, little human. Emmett was rather imposing. Especially with his face set in that determined and menacing glare. If I had been in a better mood, I would have chuckled at that. Emmett wanted to rip the vampires who had dared to try to kill his little sister to pieces. We all still viewed Bella that way – as our family.

Rosalie sat next to him. Her leg was bouncing anxiously. She had never liked Bella for whatever reason. But she had seen what Bella's absence did to our family. Bella's death would truly rip us apart. We were all only barely holding on as it was. We were just the façade of what we had been. Carlisle sat behind the pilot. He was on the plane's phone. He had been talking to Tanya ever seen we left the house. The Denali clan had agreed to help us rescue Bella. They didn't care so much about Edward's mate as they did about vampires so blatantly destroying a town in their own state. They had been living in Denali for so long they didn't want anything to threaten their happy home. Carlisle was finalizing the details with Tanya. They were going to meet us just outside of Barrow.

Esme sat next to Carlisle. Her hands were folded in her lap and her eyes were closed. She was perhaps the most anxious of all of us. She loved Bella like a daughter. We had all only agreed to leave Bella so suddenly, without even so much as a proper good-bye, because Edward had thought it would be best – safest. Esme was regretting that decision now that she realized, like the rest of us, that Bella would never be safe as long as she was a human. Jasper sat next to me, holding my hand. I could barely sit in my seat. I knew all of the emotions swirling around the tiny plane were too much for him. He looked like he wanted to throw himself out of the emergency door. I smiled weakly to him and gripped his hand a little tighter. I had to work on calming down.

I had just closed my eyes to try to meditate when another vision assaulted me. I gasped, my mind blanking out as the images flashed before me. I saw Bella injecting something into her arm. I saw the pain on her face. No, not pain – agony. Burning agony. I saw her lying on the floor, her eyes glassy, her heart stopping. She was dead. Just before the vision faded, I saw one more thing that would have chilled me to the bone had I not already been so cold. Bella blinking those dead, glassy eyes and, when she opened them again, they were red. "No!" I cried as the vision dispelled and I was thrust back into reality. The pilot jerked a little and the plane swerved.

"Is she alright?" He asked, looking over at Emmett.

"She's fine," Emmett said without turning his head. "Just fly the fucking plane."

"What is it?" Jasper asked, gently caressing my face.

I shook my head. "We're going to be too late."


	11. The Transformation

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter 11: The Transformation:

_Edward POV_

Sometimes I just wanted to throw that damn phone across the room. When I'd said that I needed to get away for a while, evidently I hadn't made myself clear enough. You'd think that moving all the way to South America would have been a clue. But not to Alice; no, Alice never really listened to anyone but herself and her stupid visions. The phone buzzed again and I stared down at it. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone today. I hadn't really been in the mood to talk to anyone in a while. In fact, I hadn't really been in the mood to leave the house for a week. So I hadn't. I knew I was being unfair to Alice. She was just concerned about me. I wasn't certain what her marathon calling spree was about and I didn't really care. I hadn't hunted in seven days and I was feeling rather weak, too weak to deal with any of her shit about how wrong I was to leave B…., well, _her. _

God, I was pathetic. I couldn't even think her name without feeling like someone was ripping my guts out. It was ridiculous. _I_ was the one who had left _her_. For good reasons too. I wasn't safe to be around. I never had been. I was a monster. There was no changing that. I couldn't become human, even though I would have given anything for that. I sure as hell wasn't going to let _her_ become a vampire, and give up her very soul in the process, just for me. I knew that I was a selfish creature, but I wouldn't let myself be that selfish. Not when it really mattered and everything about _her_ really mattered. Our relationship never had a future under those conditions. I knew that. I had just been delaying the inevitable by sticking around as long as I had anyway. Eventually, I would have had to leave. No matter what Alice said, in my mind, it always would have ended the same way.

She was going to live a full life now. She would never have to look over her shoulder, worrying about whether or not some vampire was going to try to kill her to get to my family. She would never have to worry about the Volturi coming after her because she knew our secret. She would be safe and get married and have kids and grow old and do everything that a normal human being should. Yes, I had made the right decision. Of course I had. I sighed. Had I been human, I would have been drowning myself in a bottle of whiskey at that moment. I could try to convince myself all I wanted that what I'd done was the right thing, the best thing, for _her. _But I knew in my heart that I was wrong. Still, I couldn't change the past. And I couldn't go back to Forks now. It was too late. She'd probably moved on anyway. As long as she'd moved on with someone other than Mike freakin' Newton, that was fine. Well, not really. I would never be fine with thinking of another man kissing her or touching her. But I had to live with it. Leaving had been my choice after all.

All I had been doing in South America was wallowing in self-pity and I wasn't quite ready to stop yet. So I avoided Alice's phone calls as much as possible. When Esme would call, I would pick up the phone. She didn't call that much. She knew that I needed my space. But every once in a while she needed to hear my voice. She needed to know that I was still here. So I talked to her. But no one else. I wasn't ready to go back home yet. I wasn't even sure if home was the same place anymore. _She_ had become so much a part of our lives, I didn't know what my family would be like without her. _She_ had been the life, the energy, and the passion behind everything. Without her, I felt like nothing more than the animated corpse that I really was.

The phone buzzed again and I let it go to voicemail. After it stopped, I picked it up and looked at it. Twenty messages. "Good Lord," I muttered to myself. Something had really gotten Alice worked up. She usually stopped trying after the third call. But not today. No, something was different today. I frowned and my mind started to wander a bit. What would make Alice so eager to get in touch with me? Perhaps something had happened to someone in the family. But if so, why wouldn't Carlisle have tried calling me? Or one of the others. No, it wasn't that. Something else.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Alice had seen something. She'd had one of her visions. But was it just about me? Was I in trouble? Did they need me at home? Was I ready to go home if they did? Or was it something else? I flipped open the phone, my finger hovering above the call button. She'd never left twenty messages before. I wondered…what if Alice had done the very thing that I had told her not to do? What if she had thought about _her_?I quickly hit the button and entered my password to check my messages. It was good to hear Alice's voice, even though she sounded so panicked.

"Edward! Edward, damn it, pick up your phone! I swear to God…," she trailed off at that point, mumbling something that I couldn't distinguish because of the static in the receiver. "Edward, listen, I'm going to tell you something and it's not going to be pleasant. To be honest, I'm actually hoping that you totally freak out. Maybe then you'll get off your sorry ass and come help us. I just had a vision."

The phone cut off at that point. Alice had exceeded her allotted time limit. I growled lowly, deleting that message and moving onto the next. "Stupid voicemail," I heard her mutter as the second message started. I chuckled a little. "Thirty seconds…really? Thirty second is all they give you? What if you have something important to say? Something that takes more than _thirty freakin' seconds_." I heard a voice that sounded like Jasper's whispering something in the background and then Alice started talking again. "Right, so anyway. I had a vision. Edward…it was bad. You need to come quickly. It's Bella."

The message cut off again. I froze, unable to move, even though the pleasant, computerized voice on the phone was asking me if I wanted to save the message, delete it, or move on to the next. Bella. Her name shot through me like fire, tingling all of the cells in my body. They yearned for her, reaching out to find her, to touch her. I didn't know what I wanted more - her blood, her body, or just her. I wanted all three. Not so much her blood anymore. I had gotten used to that. The thirst for her blood had become a low fire in my throat that wouldn't ever really go away. But I had learned to control it. The other things I couldn't control, like how my body reacted when she was around. I had never wanted anyone so much in my life. If my heart could beat, it would have skipped at the sound of her name rolling off of Alice's lips with such ease and familiarity. I deleted that message and moved onto the next.

"You seriously need to pick up your phone. This is getting ridiculous. I had a vision of Bella, Edward. I'm afraid if we don't get there in time, something really bad will happen. I think she was trying to communicate with me, Edward. It was unreal." I could hear her shaking her head through the phone. I also heard other noises in the background, but I couldn't figure out what they were. "I was just sitting on the sofa and then I saw her. It was dark and she was scribbling on a piece of paper. She wrote down three words. Barrow, Alaska and vampires."

That message ended and I felt my body stiffen. _Vampires_. Why would she send Alice a message about vampires in Barrow, Alaska? She lived in Forks. She wasn't in Barrow. It didn't make any sense. I moved onto the next message. "There was more," Alice continued. "The scene shifted and I saw her running. There was a lot of snow. She was so afraid, Edward. God, she was so afraid. I could see it in her eyes. There was blood everywhere and vampires. They were attacking someone behind her. But she was running." Alice paused and I could hear the tears in her voice. I heard Jasper trying to console her. She started talking again. "I think she's in Barrow, Edward. I don't know why though and I think something bad is going to happen there or it already has. We're already on our way."

The message cut off and I played the next one. "We're taking a plane to Alaska and we'll run the rest of the way once we're there. Driving would take too long. The terrain is so uneven and with the snow, well, I think most of the roads leading up that way are closed this time of year anyway." The noises made sense now. She was in a car driving to the airport. "We need you to meet us there, Edward. I don't know where you are or how quickly you'll be able to get there, but just come."

I skipped to the next message as soon as the computer voice started again. But it wasn't Alice this time. It was Emmett. "Pick up the phone you son of a bitch! Seriously. Bella is in trouble, man, and you're just sitting on your ass down there in South America wasting away like some pansy because you're too afraid to be with the girl you love. Get over it, man! Get your fucking, pasty, emo ass up here now!" I heard Esme trying to calm Emmett down, but he wasn't listening. "If you don't come help us," he growled lowly into the phone, "I'm gonna find you. And I'm gonna fuck you up, Edward. If anything happens to her because of you, I'm gonna kill you. We never should have left in the first place."

That message ended and Alice was on the next one. "Edward, Carlisle is trying to get in touch with our friends in Denali. We're hoping they'll help. I saw so many vampires, Edward. We can't fight them alone. Please….please come," her voice broke a little. "We need you, Edward. Bella needs you." I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself. My own anxiety was mounting with each message. Both Alice and Emmett had sounded so desperate.

I listened to one more message. I expected it to be Alice again, but it wasn't. This time is was Rosalie. "Edward," she said quietly. "By the time you get this, it's probably already too late. I want you to know that. Because if you're just sitting there ignoring all of these calls, it's all on you, brother. If you don't come here and help us, if we can't save her, it's all on you. She's your _mate, _Edward. At least have the decency to pick up the fucking phone!" She was yelling at this point. I cringed. If Rosalie was angry with me, I knew I was in trouble. She didn't even like Bella. "Barrow, Alaska," she said quietly. "If we don't see you there, I never want to see you again."

I didn't bother to listen to the rest of the messages. I slipped my phone into my pocket and ran out of the door. I couldn't go straight to the airport though. I needed to hunt first. It had been too long and I was weak. I wouldn't do anyone any good if I couldn't fight. But I didn't relish the experience. I found the closest animals I could and dispatched them without any real enjoyment. The blood was just fuel and I needed as much fuel as I could get if I was going to be strong enough to help save Bella. I smiled a little when I thought of her name. I was going to see her again. Soon. It didn't hurt so much to think of her anymore. I was going to Barrow, Alaska. And I was going to save her.

...........................

_Bella POV_

When Edward had told me about the process of becoming a vampire, I didn't truly understand the pain he had described. I had felt pain, I knew what it was. And I had even felt the pain of the venom once before. So I knew what that was like. I thought I had mentally prepared myself, but even with my prior experience, I didn't _really_ understand it. I hadn't been able to fathom what that burning sensation would feel like when torturing every single cell in my body. I just knew what my hand had felt like. Now I knew and I would have gladly had that pain back in my hand if it meant that the fires burning everywhere else would stop.

It started as soon as I injected the venomous blood into my vein. I actually had to drop the needle because I couldn't seem to control my muscles anymore. It felt like someone had lit my arm on fire. I really expected to look down and see flames dancing all around me. But there was nothing there. I tried clawing at it, scratching at it, but it wouldn't go away. I started whimpering and I knew that Stella wanted to come over to me. I saw her sit up a little straighter, lean forward. But she stayed where she was. As the burning spread from the tips of my fingers to my shoulder, across my chest, down into my stomach and legs, to the very tips of my feet and the ends of my hair, the whimpering turned to screaming. I was twitching violently, my muscles firing randomly as the nerve endings went into overload. The pain was too much. My body didn't know what to do with itself. I slid down so I was laying on the floor and the cool concrete felt good against my overheated skin. But the comfort of it only lasted a few seconds.

The burning just intensified. Finally, I couldn't even scream anymore. I was trapped in silent torture. My eyes were open, but I was staring into nothing. I couldn't think. I couldn't rationalize anything. I couldn't even remember anything. No smells, no sounds, nothing registered with me at all. It was all just pain. All just that fire burning underneath of my skin, attacking all of my cells, corrupting them, piercing through my organs. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might actually burst. Sweat coated my skin. I don't know how long the burning lasted. I lost all sense of time and place. I did notice when the burning started to be replaced by something else. I started to feel a coolness replacing the burning. It started in my extremities. The tips of my fingers and toes cooled first. Like someone had put ice packs on them.

Though the coolness should have felt better than the fire, there was something disconcerting about it. I realized then that I was starting to die. The coolness was spreading, the fire retreating. Up my legs, up my arms, I felt the fires go out. Everything contracted into a little point. All of the fires receded into my heart. Just when I thought the burning would stop, it shot through my heart with such intensity that my breath hitched. I tried to pull in more air, but I couldn't. Then I realized that I couldn't hear my heart anymore. Just when I started to panic, when I started to want to take it all back, when I wanted to be anything but a vampire, everything went black.

……………………….

_Stella POV_

She screamed for a few hours and I swore the vampires would come. How could they not hear her? I guess they were preoccupied trying to find Beau and my husband. I couldn't stand to see her in so much pain. I wanted desperately to go over to her, to hold her, to do anything that might help lessen whatever it was she was going through. But I remembered her telling me to stay away. Neither of us really knew what was going to happen. She didn't want to hurt me by accident. So I stayed put and I watched her. The screaming eventually stopped, but I knew that the pain hadn't. She just lay on the floor, staring blankly at the wall, her face scrunched into a grimace. She stopped twitching eventually too.

A day passed. Every once in a while, I would get up and go back into the office where Lucy was waiting. I would watch out of the binoculars as Eben and Beau hid under the wreck. The vampires were still looking for them. But for some reason, they couldn't find them. Either that or the vampires knew exactly where they were and they were just waiting until Eben and Beau got cold enough and had to resurface on their own. I couldn't stay away from Bella for long though. I hated to see her in so much pain. I hated what she was doing to herself. At one point, I actually thought about shooting her. My hand went down to my gun. If I put a bullet in her head, would it stop? Would it put her out of the misery she was in? Or would it only make things worse? I didn't know. Ultimately, I couldn't do it. She would be so pissed if, thinking I was helping the situation, I turned her into a brain damaged vampire.

I had to remember that Bella wanted this. She wanted to be a vampire; she had told me so before. Granted, she wanted it under different circumstances. But it was still her decision. She had made her choice. I couldn't take it away from her. I could only hope that when she woke up she still remembered who I was, or who she was. John Riis had seemed to be able to hold onto himself for a while, before he lost everything in the thirst. Maybe Bella could too. Maybe she wouldn't be a monster. Lucy brought me out some Twizzlers that she found in the desk and I absently ate a few. She also found a bottle of rum, but I didn't partake in that. Maybe if this thing with Bella went south I would get really drunk and let myself forget for a few moments how horribly everything had gone since the day of my wedding.

You plan for things. People being late to the ceremony. The groom maybe walking out on you in a moment of panic. Missing your plane to the honeymoon. But you pretty much never plan for a vampire attack. That was one thing I hadn't even bothered to think of. I was going to have to broaden my list of worries. One thing I knew for sure, if we ever got out of here, I was never going to sleep without an axe somewhere within reach. Time ticked by slowly. I wondered how long it would take for Bella to become one of them. I wondered how I would know when the transformation was almost complete. I was pulled from my thoughts when Bella sucked in a ragged breath and her chest stilled.

She never exhaled. Her eyes glazed over. I guess I knew that she would have to die at some point. I mean, vampires don't have a heartbeat. They were technically dead. But it still took me by surprise. I wanted to run over and give her CPR. But I had to stop myself. I couldn't really be sure that this was a part of the process, but I didn't know if it wasn't either. I waited, sitting on the balls of my feet, rocking back and forth, my eyes glued to hers. Something had to happen soon. She had to wake up. Fate was one sick bitch if she let Bella go through all that pain for nothing. Finally, out of nowhere, she blinked. She wasn't breathing and she blinked. It wasn't like I was seeing things. No, she really blinked. Her eyes drifted shut for half a second and, when they opened again, they were blood red.


	12. The One Who Fights

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Note:

I just wanted to thank all of my reviewers for being so incredibly cool. I really appreciate the reviews. They keep me inspired to update so often. I especially want to thank Jo Souilliere for the great reviews. It's cool to have someone reading who has read so many of my other stories. Also, SynergyFox, your reviews always have me laughing. Finally, kaulitztwilightlover for the idea to bring the Denali coven into this. I believe I owe you partial credit. Thanks again guys!

Chapter Twelve: The One Who Fights:

_Bella POV_

The first thing I noticed was that I didn't have to breathe. My heart wasn't beating. My lungs weren't straining for oxygen. I was dead. I didn't know how I knew that or how my brain was still functioning if I was dead. But I just knew. I didn't have to breathe, but it felt kinda weird not to. So I took in a shaky breath and that was when I smelled it. Blood. My God, I had never smelled anything so completely enticing before. Even the best smelling meal couldn't possibly compare. It wasn't the rust and salt smell that I was accustomed to. No, it was something different entirely. An array of delicious scents. My throat immediately started burning and my mouth filled with venom. I swallowed it down. My body instinctively wanted to seek out that amazing smell, but I wasn't ready to get up yet. I didn't know why the smell of blood was so appealing to me. It had always made me feel sick. I was laying on the floor, but I couldn't remember why. I couldn't really remember much right away.

Fuzzy bits and pieces started to come back to me. I remembered a wedding. I remembered a vampire trying to beat in the roof of a truck. I remembered being in an attic for what seemed like forever. But the details escaped me. Other things came back to me too. Charlie and the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Edward and how the sun looked sparkling off of his diamond coated skin. I vaguely remembered Phoenix and the baking hot sun blazing off of a parking lot. I also remembered the day Renee and Phil drove me to the airport. I remembered feeling so sad to be leaving, but resigned that Forks was going to be my new home. I remembered my first day at Forks high school and how everyone had stared at me. If they could only see me now, I'd give them something to stare at. Then I remembered the transformation, the pain. The burning in my throat made so much more sense now. I was a vampire.

I looked around and felt completely overwhelmed. I could see so much more than I had been able to as a human. I saw all of the particles of dust floating in the air. I could see the little cracks in the concrete floor. All of the colors were so vibrant. The congealing blood on the floor was the darkest of reds, like dark red wine. That blood didn't smell so good as the other blood, the blood rushing through the veins of the human in the room with me. I looked around for her and my eyes fell on Stella. I could hear her heartbeat. I could see her veins twitching in her neck and her wrists. I could see the blood rushing just underneath of her skin. God, how did Edward stand it? How had he been able to be around me? How could he have stood to be so close to me? I must have driven him crazy.

I didn't appreciate what he went through to be with me before. But I did now. The burning in my throat consumed my thoughts. Before I knew what I was doing, I jumped to my feet. Stella had been watching me warily. Now she looked completely terrified. I moved so fast, she didn't even see me coming. Grabbing her by the throat, I slammed her up against the wall, her feet six inches off the floor. A low hiss formed in the back of my throat. I couldn't take my eyes off of the vein throbbing in her neck. One little bite. All I would need was one little bite and her blood would start pouring into my mouth. So warm. And I was so thirsty. I leaned in closer, not even realizing what I was doing. The only thing that stopped me was her voice.

"Bella!" She yelled as loudly as she could with my fingers squeezing on her airway. "Bella! It's me. You know who I am. You _really_ don't want to do this," she argued. Her voice was pleading with me. Her eyes were pleading with me. Her whole body was tense and she could have grabbed her gun. I don't know how much damage it would have done, but she could have tried shooting me. She didn't though, she was waiting for something. She was waiting for _me_. She still had faith in me. That shook me.

I faltered. Loosening my grip on her neck, I let her slide back down so her feet were touching the floor. Our eyes met. I could see the little flecks of color in them. I breathed in again and the smell of her blood assaulted me. I closed my eyes, trying to swallow down the venom, trying to block it out. I think she knew what I was doing because all of the sudden she was holding my hands. She was trying to comfort me. She should have been running away from me; instead she was trying to help me. I suddenly felt so guilty for almost eating her. Shame washed over my features. "It's okay, Bella," she was saying. "Look at me." I opened my eyes. "You're doing good," she praised, smiling a little. She didn't look quite so afraid now, though her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. She was still unnerved by me.

"I'm sorry," I choked out and my voice sounded so different to me that I wasn't quite sure it was me who had spoken. She noticed the difference too. My voice seemed richer, more musical, more like Alice's voice than my own. She laughed a little.

"Who knew?" She said, chuckling. "Being a vampire agrees with you, Bella. You actually look really amazing."

I wasn't sure what she was talking about because there weren't any mirrors around. But if my voice sounded so different, I knew I must have looked different too. I definitely felt different. I was so much stronger. I could feel the strength running through my muscles. I had so much more energy. I felt like I could run for miles and not get tired. Stella's hand was so warm in mine, I knew my hand must have felt ice cold, like Edward's hand. "How long?" I finally asked. I was still studying her face. She didn't seemed to mind that I was scrutinizing her. It was rather rude of me, actually. But I couldn't look away from her. She was my lifeline, my link to who I was before I had let myself become a vampire.

"You were out for a day and a half," she said.

I raised my eyebrow in surprise. "That's all? Edward said it took three days."

She shrugged. "I guess not," she replied. "I kinda can't believe it worked at all."

I breathed again and the venom pooled in my mouth. But it was easier to swallow down this time. The longer I spent with Stella, the less I wanted to bite her. The more I talked with her, the more the _person_ in me came forward, the more the monster retreated. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head sharply. I jumped away from Stella, moving so fast she didn't even see me doing it. One second I was standing right in front of her, the next I was across the room, my back to the wall. I had forgotten about Lucy. She shuffled out of the office anxiously. My sudden movement made her freeze, terrified that I was about to attack her. She was almost right. The smell of two humans was nearly too much for me. I closed my eyes again and tried to calm down. My heart would have been pounding in my chest had it been capable of beating anymore.

"Bella?" Lucy asked hesitantly.

"Just stay there…for now," I said, swallowing quickly. My hands were clenched at my sides and I was shaking a little. Stella ignored my words and moved forward, very slowly though. I opened my eyes and she was standing in front of me again. Reaching out, she very lightly touched the side of my face.

"Your skin is so cold," she murmured. "And your eyes," she trailed off.

"What do my eyes look like?" I asked, curious.

"They're red," she replied. "Your skin doesn't give like it should. It's harder, like marble. And so pale."

I sighed. Before I knew what she was doing, she had pulled me into a hug. I was so close to her neck now. I stopped breathing entirely. When I didn't breathe, the burning wasn't quite so bad. Hesitantly, I hugged her back. The contact felt good. It reminded me that I was still alive, well, sort of. "I think I'm okay," I murmured when she pulled away. "I mean, I really wanted to bite you at first."

She smirked. "Yeah, the whole grabbing me in a choke hold thing clued me in on that."

"Sorry," I muttered sheepishly.

"But you don't want to bite me now?" She asked.

"Well," I said thoughtfully, "I wouldn't quite go that far. A part of me still wants to drain you. But another part of me knows who you are. It remembers. And it knows that I don't really want to kill you. That's the part that I'm listening to."

"I think that's the Bella in you," Stella said quietly.

"I guess so," I said. I turned to Lucy. "It's okay. You don't have to be afraid."

She nodded and moved a little closer. I was getting used to the burning now. It sort of faded into the background of my consciousness. It was always there, but it wasn't all consuming like I'd thought it would be. Edward had said that newborn vampires only thought of blood. It was all they wanted. I must have been an exception to the rule. I guess my brain was wired differently. Maybe that was why Edward had never been able to read my thoughts. There was something in me that was wrong…or right. Maybe being a vampire was what my mind and body had been designed for. The thirst was bad, but it wasn't so bad. It wasn't the only thing on my mind. I found that I was able to focus on many different things at the same time. So many things, actually, that I felt a little ADD.

My mind kept jumping around from Stella to Lucy to my surroundings to the dust particles in the air to the memories that occasionally bubbled to the forefront of my mind. "Uh, Bella?" Stella said, pulling me from my thoughts.

"What?" I asked.

"Not to rush you or anything," she said. "I know that all this must be a lot for you to get used to. But Eben and Beau…," she trailed off when a look of understanding passed across my features.

I suddenly remembered why I had done this in the first place. Eben and Beau were trapped out in the snow, surrounded by vampires. I was going to try to save them. I moved passed Stella, moving much quicker than a human would have, and went into the office. I mentally reminded myself to try to act a little more human around the humans. I could tell that my speed was freaking them out. They filed in after me. I was staring out of the window and I was a little surprised to find that I didn't need the binoculars. I could see the distance just fine. Eben and Beau were still trapped under the wreck. They both looked so cold. They were going to freeze to death if they had to stay out there much longer. I could already see their eyes drooping.

I scanned the rooftops for the vampires. I immediately spotted six of them. They were crouched on the rooftops, waiting. But their eyes were continually scanning. They were looking for Eben and Beau, but they couldn't find them. I still didn't know why. Movement caught my eye and I saw other vampires flitting in between the buildings. They were searching through them. Sniffing. One of the vampires stood out more than the rest. I knew without question that he was their leader. The other vampires gave him a wide berth. He strode right down Main Street so confidently, like he owned the whole place, which at the moment he did. His hair was cut short and he looked to be in his forties maybe. His eyes were bright red. He moved like a predator would and I wondered how much human contact he'd had. He didn't seem human at all, not like the Cullens. Granted, they'd had their moments of seeming incredibly inhuman. The baseball game briefly flashed through my mind. But they moved like human beings and they talked like human beings…most of the time. This vampire, he was like no other vampire I'd seen. Even James was more human than he was.

I smiled a little. He was the one I needed to go after. He was the alpha male, so to speak, and I knew if I could kill him the others would be afraid of me. "I know what I need to do," I said. I looked back over at Stella and Lucy. "You should stay here," I said.

But Stella shook her head. "No," she replied. "I'm going with you."

"It's not safe," I argued.

"Eben is my husband. And, for all intents and purposes, you're my sister now. You're not going out there alone. I don't care if you are a vampire," she argued back. "If you die, we all die anyway. I'd rather go out fighting than sitting here waiting to die."

"You won't be fighting," I said, looking back out of the window. "I will."

"Well, if you're going, I might as well go too," Lucy said, sighing a little. "I'm not staying here by myself. This place is creeping me out."

"Come on," I said, purposefully slowing down my pace to match theirs. I think they appreciated my effort. Stella smiled a little over at me. The fear was gone from her eyes now. We left the Utilidor the same way we'd come in. I remembered being so cold when I was running behind Stella, trying to get to the place. But as I stepped outside, I was surprised to find that I didn't feel cold at all. I wasn't even wearing a jacket. I wondered if Edward had ever actually needed his jacket in Forks, or if he only wore it to blend in better. Stella and Lucy started shivering right away. I guess it would have looked a bit odd for him to be strolling around in a t-shirt while everyone else had on winter coats.

We started walking back to town. I was itching to race forward, but I didn't want to leave them behind. I didn't know what else was out here. I would never forgive myself if I left them to save Eben and Beau only to come back and find that they had been killed in my absence. So we walked, so very slowly. I think Stella sensed my agitation because she started quietly laughing. I rolled my eyes at her. "What?" I said defensively. "I'm not used to being able to move so fast. It's kinda cool."

"Only you would think that being a vampire is kinda cool," Stella shot back.

I snorted. Emmett had never seemed to have a problem with what he was. "Well," I said, "it does have its benefits."

We were getting closer to town and we fell silent. I wondered how strong I really was. I felt strong. But I hadn't fed and the other vampires had been eating people in town for nearly a month now. Would I even be able to fight their leader? Or would he overpower me? I couldn't answer those questions and I didn't want to try. I just knew that if I didn't challenge him the people I cared about would die. When we came in sight of the buildings, the vampires on the rooftops straightened up. They looked at Stella and Lucy first. They obviously wanted to attack them, but then their eyes settled on me. They hadn't been expecting another vampire, much less a vampire freely walking in the company of two humans. I threw them off. Instead of jumping down to attack, they all turned to look at the vampire standing in the center of the street.

We passed near the wreck. I stopped and looked over at it. I could hear Eben and Beau both pull in shocked breaths when they saw my red eyes. "Jesus, Bella," Eben muttered. "What did you do?" He looked absolutely astonished. But he saw how closely I was standing to Lucy and Stella. He saw how relaxed I was with them and he didn't look afraid. My eyes shifted to Beau. He looked sad. I sniffed the air and realized then why the vampires hadn't been able to find them. I couldn't smell them. All I could smell was gasoline. When they drove the ditch driller into the building, the gas tank must have leaked all over them as they were trying to escape. They didn't even remotely smell human.

Stella moved a little closer to the wreck and gestured with her hand. "Come on," she whispered. "We're making a stand."

Beau and Eben crawled out from underneath the wreck. I smirked a little when I saw the vampires' eyes widen in shock. They hadn't expected to find the two humans they had been searching for hidden right underneath of their very noses. My eyes shifted to the vampire in the street. He was studying me. It was disheartening at first to see how casually he was looking at me. But then I noticed the tension in his muscles. I wasn't something he had planned for. Eben and Beau joined us. I was standing in front of the four of them, my arms folded across my chest. We must have been quite a sight, four humans and a vampire.

"What is this?" The vampire finally asked. He was moving closer. But I held my ground. I wasn't going to show weakness in front of him.

"You come to my town," I said, my voice ringing clearly out into the night. "You kill my people. And you have the nerve to question me?" I asked indignantly, putting on a little show for him. Really, I was terrified of him. But he didn't need to know that. "What did you think I would do? Just sit back and watch?"

"We didn't know there was a vampire in this town already," he said hesitantly. He didn't recognize me as one of the humans he had been hunting.

I smiled at that. "There wasn't," I said, letting that sink in. His eyes lit up in amazement.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"You've been trying to kill me all this time," I said, lowering my arms, my hands clenched into fists. "Now it's my turn to kill you. This," I said gesturing to myself, "was the only way."

He didn't quite know what to say to that. I think he understood at that moment that I hadn't been turned by one of his people. No, I had done this to myself. He growled lowly his throat and pushed forward. When the other vampires moved as though to join him, he held up his hand. "No," he said. His eyes were fixed on my face and he was angry. "I handle this."

"No matter what happens," I said quietly to the others. "Don't interfere." I looked back at them. "And don't get in my way." They nodded.

"You are one kick ass girl, Bella Swan," Beau replied, chuckling a little and shaking his head.

I smiled. "Let's just hope I'm a little more coordinated now that I'm a vampire." Turning back to the vampire moving slowly toward me, I stepped forward. He flashed a twisted grin at me for a moment and a split second later he was rushing toward me. He was so fast, much faster than I was. But even so, I could see his every moment. My eyes kept up with him perfectly. As a human, all I would have been able to see of him was a blur. Now I saw everything. I ran to meet him and we collided. Thunder echoed through the town, or at least I thought it was thunder, until I realized it was just the sound of us running into each other. Amazingly, neither of us fell down. I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and threw him into the nearest building. It shook from the impact, several bricks dropping loose.

But that didn't seem to faze him. He was on his feet in seconds, coming back at me. This time, he tackled me, burying his head in my stomach. The air whooshed out of my lungs. I would have been in trouble if I actually needed to breathe. But, since I didn't, it just felt uncomfortable, but nothing more. Pain flashed through me when I slammed into another building. He held me in place, reaching back with his fist and bringing it down onto my head. He did that several times before I could recover myself. Wedging my knee up between us, I pushed him away. He flew out into the snow, rolled over, and was on his feet. I took a little bit longer to regain my footing and he was on me again.

He flung me through the air and I landed face first on the hood of a car. The hood dented with the impact. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it should have. What really hurt was when he grabbed my hair and started banging my face into the metal. I wondered if I could scar as a vampire. Then the vampire grabbed my hand and started squeezing. My skin was rock hard, but he was so strong. The bones in my hand started snapping. I cried out in pain. He had my head pressed down on the hood of the car. Leaning down, he whispered in my ear, "Once I'm done with you, I'm going to drain all of your friends, starting with the blonde one first." My eyes drifted over to Stella. All four of them looked terrified. They knew that their lives depended on my being able to defeat the vampire that was so clearly winning our fight. Stella's eyes met mine and, despite the fear in them, they flashed with confidence. She truly did believe in me. I saw the same thing in Beau's eyes and in Eben's eyes. Not so much Lucy. She was just terrified. Something in me hardened. I couldn't, no I _wouldn't_, let him touch any of them.

Struggling out of his grasp, I managed to turn around so I was facing him. I head butted him, rather pleased with myself when he stumbled backwards. Despite the pain in my now mangled hand, I grabbed the vampire by the neck. With all of the force I could muster, I reached back with my broken hand and shoved it directly into his mouth. The other vampires watched in horror as I ripped through his brains, my hand coming out on the other side of his skull. And with the hand still holding his throat, I tore off his head. His body fell to the ground, twitching a little. I knew I would have to dismember it and probably burn it to ensure that he wouldn't get up again.

But at that moment, I was just astonished that I'd won. The other vampires, however, didn't quite react as I'd expected. I thought that if I killed their leader, they would back off, maybe rethink their stay in Barrow. Now they just looked pissed. They all started snarling at once, their voices a cacophony of rage. Their eyes all focused on me and I actually gulped. Oh yeah, I was in trouble now. I'd had a difficult time with just one vampire. There was no way I could fight them all. The ones on the rooftops jumped down and started to advance toward me. The others moved with lightning fast speed to join their friends. They were about twenty feet away from me when they suddenly all stopped, frozen in place, their eyes wide with confusion and even a little bit of fear.

There was no way they were reacting that way because of me. I felt a tingle run up my spine. Sniffing the air, I realized that I could smell something vaguely familiar, like citrus and orchids. I couldn't really place it. It definitely didn't belong in Barrow. I watched the vampires in front of me warily and realized then that they weren't really looking at me at all. They were looking behind me. Surely, Stella, Eben, Beau, and Lucy hadn't scared them that way. I turned around. No, those four were turned around too, looking behind them. Slowly, my eyes drifted passed them, over the snow, to a group of people standing about forty feet behind them. There were eleven of them. My eyes fell first on the ones that I didn't recognize.

Then I saw her and the whole world seemed to drop away from me. I felt light headed, my knees wobbling a little. She was standing in front of all of the others. She looked exactly the same. Thin, but not emaciated. She was so small anyway that her thinness didn't look out of place. Her hair was still spiky. Her eyes were liquid gold. My human eyes hadn't done her justice. I remembered how beautiful I thought she was back then. But I didn't even know how beautiful she was. I couldn't appreciate it fully until now, when I was looking at her through my vampire eyes. Her mouth was dropped open in a little O. She looked absolutely astonished. "Alice," I whispered. She heard her name and her eyes were suddenly so full of love. I had to look away. I wasn't ready for that yet. My eyes shifted from her and fell on Jasper, who was standing next to her. He looked so confused, but I didn't know why.

Emmett was standing next to him. He looked stunned. I don't think he expected to come all the way to Barrow just to find me kicking some vampire's ass. Rosalie was next to him, smirking. When her eyes met mine, she didn't look away like she normally did. Her face didn't fall into its patented scorn. She actually looked rather apologetic. Esme and Carlisle were next to her. They were holding hands. Carlisle looked incredibly tense. Esme just looked relieved to see that I wasn't dead…well, _dead_ dead anyway. My eyes fell to the empty space next to her and I felt the pain flare up in my chest again. _He_ wasn't here. They had all come for me. They had even brought more vampires to help them. But _he_ hadn't come. Maybe he was too distracted to bother, I thought bitterly.

So many emotions whirled through me at once, Jasper actually staggered backward. They were too much for him. Alice had to grab his arm to keep him upright. I was so angry. If they had only come two days sooner, I wouldn't have had to literally kill myself to defend the people I loved. If they had never left, I never would have come to Barrow in the first place. I was angry, but I was also relieved. Their being here meant we were going to survive. The vampires wouldn't attack us now. There were too many of us. Part of me was also a little overjoyed. I didn't realize how much I had truly missed them until I saw them again. I wanted to launch myself at Alice and just sob in her arms. Of course, I couldn't actually cry anymore.

"Uh, Bella?" Eben asked, his voice shaking a little. "I think we're massively outnumbered."

I smirked. Eben thought the Cullens and their mystery friends were more vampires sneaking up on them. Stella knew better. She looked back at me and her eyes were gleaming. "It worked," she said, her voice soaring. Alice raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't say anything. Emmett's eyes shifted from me to the vampires standing behind me. A slow smile graced his face and I knew he wanted to fight. Carlisle literally couldn't look away from me. I fidgeted a little under his gaze.

"It's okay," I said, addressing Eben. "_You_ don't have to be afraid of them." I turned back to the vampires still hovering in front of me. They were trying to figure out what was going on. My eyes darkened. I felt the others come up behind me. I knew they were there without even having to look. Now I wasn't just one, little, malnourished vampire standing in front of four pathetically weak humans. No, now I was a vampire standing in front of eleven other vampires. Strong vampires. "But you," I grinned, revealing my teeth to the vampires now slowly backing away from us. "Oh, you'd better be afraid."


	13. Impressions

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Note:

This chapter is a survey of the reactions that the Cullens have to seeing Bella as a vampire. There isn't much action in it, but I thought it was important to show what they're thinking before I get into the big rumble.

Chapter Thirteen: Impressions:

_Emmett POV_

As soon as the plane landed, we were off in the forest running. It would have taken too long to rent a car. Besides, the roads up near Barrow were all closed anyway. I reveled in the feeling of the wind whipping by me as I ran. Vaguely, I was aware of the others around me. Alice and Jasper were ahead of me. Esme and Carlisle behind. Rose never left my side, even though she could run faster than I could. You didn't have to be a mind reader to know that she was suffering through a rollercoaster of conflicting emotions. Bella had always thought that Rose hated her. That wasn't really true. Rose just didn't know how to deal with a human who actually wanted to be a vampire. It didn't seem right to her, natural. She never said it out loud to me, but I knew. She had been jealous of Bella. Not because she thought that Bella was prettier, or smarter, or anything like that. No, she was jealous because Bella still had the chance to have all the things that Rose wished she could have. And Bella didn't want them.

But now, none of that mattered. All that mattered to Rose was that someone was trying to take those things away from Bella too. Alice hadn't told us everything about the last vision that had rocked her into silence. I'd never heard the little pixie be so quiet in my life. It was disturbing. All she would say was that she had seen Bella die. And that she had seen Bella wake up as one of us. She wouldn't say who had turned her or why. She wouldn't say if we could stop it. She wouldn't actually say anything. I knew that plane ride had been hell for Jasper. The whole flight to Alaska he looked like he wanted to throw himself out of the emergency door. I think Alice thought the same thing because she was clutching onto his hand so tightly she would have crushed it into a million pieces had he been human. The despondency pouring off of Alice, the guilt pouring off of Esme, and the anxiety pouring off of the rest of us, was too much for him. I felt bad for the guy, but I hadn't really been thinking about him.

No, I had been thinking about my little sister, or the woman who _should_ have been my little sister. The thought of some vampire biting her, turning her, made me sick. She would be so alone. She didn't deserve that. She should have been turned by people who loved and cared about her, not by some random vampire that only wanted to drink her blood. She should have been turned by Edward. I had shut that part of my brain down as soon as the thought passed through it. Thinking about my brother right now would not help things. I was almost as pissed at him as I was at the vampires attacking Barrow. Jasper didn't need _that_ much anger floating around the airplane.

Now here we were, running as fast as we could, desperately trying to get to Barrow before Alice's visions came true, even though her words echoed through each of our minds. _We're going to be too late._ If I was too late to save her, I was sure as hell gonna make someone pay. I briefly wondered if Rose was running so close to me to keep an eye on me. You didn't have to be Jasper to feel the rage coming off of me. She knew how badly I wanted to kick some ass. And she was worried that I would hurt myself in the process. I chucked a little at that and she turned to look at me while we ran. She didn't even have to look at the ground. She was so graceful. I took a moment to appreciate the way her body moved, compensating for the little dips and bumps in the ground. Her golden hair was flowing out behind her, her eyes were glinting at me fiercely. Oh yeah, my wife was hot. I grinned back at her, my eyes sparkling a little as I thought of the upcoming fight, and she shook her head. "Men," she muttered under her breath.

It felt like we had been running forever by the time we reached Barrow. Eleazar, Tanya, Irina, Carmen, and Kate were waiting for us by the Welcome to Barrow sign. Blood was smeared all over it. Someone had removed the population numbers and replaced them with a zero. Red shot in front of my eyes at that and I clenched my fists. Rose grabbed one of my hands, prying loose my fingers, and slipping her own small hand into mine. She had a calming influence on me and I let it wash over me. I didn't need Jasper with her around. The whole town smelled like stale blood and rotting flesh. Fires were burning all over the place. Cars were mangled up, wrecked on the sides of the road or flipped over. I could smell the vampires. I smelled them before I saw them. I also smelled humans. We rounded the bend that led to Main Street and stopped immediately, still under the cover of darkness, out of sight. Four humans were standing about fifty feet in front of us. They looked horrible. Their clothes were stained and covered with blood. They were thin, too thin, and they smelled more than a little ripe. Rose wrinkled her nose up and I smiled. Even Jasper seemed put off by them and that was saying something.

But they weren't really paying any attention to us. They were watching something going on in front of them. That was when I saw her. The vampires crowding around her, they all just faded into the background. For the moment, they didn't matter. They didn't matter because Alice had been right. We _were_ too late. Some vampire was beating her head into the hood of a car. I couldn't hear her heartbeat anymore. He was beating her to death. I started forward, but Jasper threw his arm out and blocked me. "Wait," he said.

"What for?" I asked, incredulous.

"Look," he whispered, his eyes trained on Bella.

And I did. I didn't see what he wanted me to see, not right away. But then the vampire whispered something in her ear and she looked up at the humans. That startled me because I had truly thought that she was dead. She didn't notice us. We were still in the darkness, all of us standing perfectly still. And she wasn't really looking for us anyway. That's when I noticed her eyes. Red eyes. "Shit," I murmured. We weren't just too late. We were epically too late. We had missed everything.

Something inside of her seemed to snap when she looked at the humans. I almost expected her to leap over the car and start devouring one of them. But instead, she flipped around in the vampire's grasp and head butted him. I grimaced a little at that, expecting to see blood pouring down Bella's face. But she wasn't all that breakable anymore. And she was actually kinda coordinated. That was amazing enough. But it was what happened next that caused my mouth to drop open and my brain to stall out. Bella reached back and shoved her hand into the vampire's mouth. Her fingers shot all the way through his skull and, leveraging with her other hand, she used her new born strength to rip his head clean off his body.

Oh. My. God. My little sister just killed a vampire. She didn't _just_ kill a vampire. She fucked him up so good it was kinda beautiful. Of course, she had only killed one of them and the others looked pretty pissed off about the whole thing. I looked at my family and extended family gathered around me. All of our faces were set in determined, grim masks. But underneath, we were all terrified, or anguished, or grieving, or relieved, or happy, or any combination of emotions that were hard to reconcile. Carlisle and Eleazar, as leaders of our covens, both nodded. It was our turn to fight, to defend one of our own. We moved forward, into the light of one of the fires burning nearby. The other vampires stopped when they saw us, not expecting to see so large a group of vampires treading on their turf. The humans spun around when they realized that we were behind them. Instantly, they tensed. All of their hopes for survival fled out of their faces when they saw us. They were surrounded by vampires and they thought we were going to kill them.

Alice stepped a little in front of us, holding up her hands to the humans to try to calm them down. One of them, a blonde woman, looked at us curiously for a moment. Her eyes seemed to light up when she saw Alice. A ghost of a smile played on her lips. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella tense up. Her eyes fell on the Denali coven first and I saw confusion flit across her features. She didn't know who they were. Edward had probably only mentioned them in passing. Then she saw Alice. Jasper stepped back a little, clearly overwhelmed by the emotions coming off of Bella. Her eyes shifted to me and I think my mouth was still hanging open a little because she seemed to smile at me, though it didn't reach her eyes. My little sister was a vampire now. She didn't need my protection. Not anymore. I couldn't help but feel like I had failed her somehow. Of all the things that flashed across her face, anger was the one that stuck out the most for me. No matter what happened today, I knew we were going to be in for a rough road ahead. Nothing was what it should be.

_..........................._

_Alice POV_

There she was, standing so close if I just launched myself toward her I would land right in front of her. But something held me back. I was so ecstatic to see her. I could barely stand still. She whispered my name and I wanted to rush to her again, but Jasper laid his hand on my arm. Something in what she was feeling wasn't quite right. I could see it on her face. She wasn't ready for that yet. But there was something in her voice. Hope, maybe? When she said my name, relief seemed to flood over her. Almost as though she had been expecting me. I wondered again if Bella had sent me those visions, at least the first one. I didn't even know if that was possible. I would have to ask Carlisle later.

I couldn't believe how beautiful she was. It was astonishing. I don't think I could have formed a coherent sentence if I tried at that moment. I had seen her in my visions before as one of us, but they hadn't done her justice. She was extraordinary. My best friend was right in front of me. I had hoped and prayed and wished for this moment for so long. But it wasn't right. It wasn't what I had wanted. None of it was. It was all so bittersweet. Because Bella was dead. She was a vampire now, but part of her had died. Part of you always dies in the process. It's not just that your heart stops beating. You lose something along the way. The fact that she had done it to herself to save the humans standing in front of us was more than I could bear. I hadn't told the others. I didn't think they needed to know that part. They didn't need to know that Bella had killed herself to do what we should have been here to do. My chest clenched and I knew that if I could cry, silent tears would have been streaming down my face. I tried to communicate all of my love and friendship for her with my eyes, but she looked away. Bella was so different now. I wondered if we could ever be a family again.

……………………….

_Rosalie POV_

I had wondered the whole plane ride up here how I would react to seeing Bella again. She had caused so much trouble in my family, not through any particular fault of her own. Just because she was human. Although, in fairness, most of it wasn't because _she_ was human but because _we_ were vampires. As soon as I saw her eyes, those red, vampire eyes, all of the tension, anxiety, and anger I had ever felt about her washed away. She was one of us now. She was one of us because we hadn't been there for her. She hadn't been my friend. She hadn't been anything more to me than an annoyance. But now, I felt this overwhelming desire to fight with her, to stand with her, and to protect her. My eyes turned to the vampires behind her. If any of them took so much as a single step toward her, it was on. I suddenly knew why Emmett wanted to fight so badly. I hadn't quite gotten it before. I hadn't felt it. We protect our family. We protect our own. And Bella was a part of that family now, whether she wanted to be or not.

……………………….

_Esme POV_

She was absolutely stunning. Despite the dirt and blood caking her clothes and skin, despite the dark circles under her eyes, and despite how unnaturally thin she looked, she was still so beautiful she was almost painful to look at. I wondered if she'd fed yet. She looked thirsty. She looked tired. My heart ached for her. I tried to gauge her emotions when she looked at me, but I could see nothing in her eyes. She looked to the empty space next to me and I knew what she was thinking. Edward should have been here. But he wasn't. I couldn't stop the anger from welling up in me as I thought of Edward, my son. Always my prodigal son. How many times would he have to leave and come back begging for forgiveness before he realized that he truly and deeply belonged with us – with her? But something in the way she held herself, like she was trying to lean away from us and toward us at the same time, made me pause. I only hoped it wasn't too late. For all of us.

……………………

_Carlisle POV_

My only thought when I saw her was that it shouldn't have happened like this. I didn't know who turned her. Alice wouldn't tell us. But I knew it shouldn't have been some vampire she didn't know. It shouldn't have just been about blood. It should have been about love. It should have been Edward. Part of me was angry with my son for choosing to leave Bella behind in Forks. Part of me understood why he had decided to do it. I didn't know which was the right course of action – staying or leaving. So many things could have gone wrong if we had stayed. So many things had gone wrong since we left. I wondered if Bella blamed us for it all. I wondered if she would be happy to see us once the vampires threatening her and Barrow were gone. I wondered if she would stay with us or if she would leave. Most of all, I wondered how all of this would affect Edward.

He had never wanted her to become a vampire. Though I knew better than to question his love for her, I always wondered why he had been so adamant that she stay human, a course of action which would lead to their eventual parting. He didn't believe he had a soul; he didn't want to inflict a soulless life on her too. But he also never felt like he deserved to be happy. Keeping Bella human was a way to punish himself. He would give himself a certain measure of happiness and watch as it inevitably faded away into sorrow and death. I understood all of his reasons. Though I loved my family more than anything, I always questioned whether turning each of them was the right decision, the best decision for them. Would Edward have been happier if I hadn't supposedly damned him to the life of a monster? Would Rosalie? I never really questioned turning Emmett. He was better suited to life as a vampire than as a human. I couldn't make myself regret Esme. Human life held too much pain for her. And no matter what, I always needed her with me, even if turning her had been the most selfish act I could have committed. I had been willing to do it for love, for even the potential for love; Edward hadn't.

………………………

_Jasper POV_

I knew that I shouldn't be staring at her. But it was just so odd. She was standing not twenty feet from four humans and she looked like she didn't care at all. Granted, they smelled horrible. None of them had showered for weeks apparently. Even with my difficulties with control, their blood didn't remotely smell appealing to me at this point. Biting one of them would have been like biting a wet, gaunt, sickly dog. But Bella, she was a newborn. It shouldn't have mattered to her what her food smelled like. Newborns didn't care. They just fed on anything and everything with a pulse. Yet, here she was, standing so nonchalantly. And the humans weren't even afraid of her. I couldn't believe it.

When Alice went to step forward, I had to hold her back. Bella was relieved and overjoyed to see us. But she was also deeply hurt and dangerously angry. Newborns always had difficulty controlling their emotions. They could go from happy to enraged in seconds for no apparent reason. And Bella had more than enough reasons to feel so volatile. Even though I knew how much Alice wanted to go comfort Bella, I couldn't risk my wife putting herself in danger. Not yet. And I knew Bella would never forgive herself if she hurt Alice. Bella's eyes shifted to me and I expected to see accusation in them. But I didn't. I was actually shocked to see forgiveness. I questioned her with my eyes, but she looked away. She should hate me. I was the cause for all of the trauma in her life, for all of the anger I felt coming off of her now. But virtually none of it was directed at me. I couldn't understand it. Nothing about her made sense.

I saw Rosalie glaring at the vampires behind her and I tensed. Bella was strong, but she was new to being a vampire. She hadn't had years of experience in fighting. She didn't even really know how to fight. We had all seen her kill one vampire, but she had gotten lucky and she knew it. That mob would tear her apart. Rosalie caught my eye. I nodded imperceptibly. When the vampires behind Bella rushed forward, hoping to catch her off guard now that she was distracted by us, both Rosalie and I launched ourselves into the air. There were eleven of us. There were over twenty of them. By the time the fight ended, the streets of Barrow would be littered with more corpses. I could only hope that I wouldn't see any of my family die tonight. I could only hope that we wouldn't lose Bella…again.


	14. The Fight

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Notes:

I have to admit that I struggled valiantly with this chapter and it may have defeated me. It wanted to go in like eight different directions. Ultimately, I think it went in the most depressing direction of all of them. But that's okay. I threw in a little something for you guys at the very end. But don't get too excited. It's not all puppies and kittens.

Chapter 14: The Fight:

_Bella POV_

I instinctively crouched low and hissed when I saw Jasper and Rosalie sailing through the air toward me. The hissing thing was something I would have to get used to. Well, in truth, I would have to get used to pretty much _everything_. I honestly thought they were going to attack me. Maybe they thought I was a mistake. Maybe they didn't want me to be a vampire. Maybe there were rules about who could and could not become a vampire and I had somehow broken them. After all, I had done this to myself. Jasper landed on my right and Rosalie on my left. They were a few feet in front of me. I braced myself; I was so sure they were going to kill me. It was irrational really. They were my friends…well, maybe that wasn't quite right either. They had been the _least_ friendly of all of the Cullens when it came to me. Maybe that was why I expected them to do something to me. Maybe it was just because most vampires don't inherently like to be around large groups of other vampires, especially when two of those vampires, say, jump at you. I don't know why I reacted the way I did, but suddenly I was growling at them, my red eyes flashing.

The hit from behind I hadn't been expecting. I stumbled forward, landing in Jasper's arms. He smiled at me a little, I think apologetically, and quickly shoved me to the side as he grabbed the vampire that had slammed into my back. And then the fight started. I fell into the snow, a tangled mess of limbs. Apparently, all it took for me to revert to clumsy Bella Swan was the sight of a Cullen. I would have been pissed at Jasper if it wasn't for the fact that, from my new position on the ground, I could see that the mob of vampires would be on Jasper and Rosalie in a second. A blur of shapes moved passed me and suddenly they were all there, standing over me, protecting me. Well, almost all. Emmett, Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Jasper, Alice, and five vampires I didn't know were about to be bulldozed by the vampires rushing toward us.

The sound was unlike anything I'd ever heard. A wall of rock hard vampires hitting another wall of rock hard vampires. It actually hurt my ears. It was like one of those medieval war movies where two armies of heavily armored men crash into each other. I cringed and scrambled to my feet. The vampires were swarming around the Cullens. We were so outnumbered it was ridiculous. Everyone was moving so fast. It seemed like in an instant the ground was stained with blood and venom. I could hear ripping and howls of pain. Two vampires came at me, one of them grabbing me around the waist. He picked me up and slammed me back down into the snow. My head hit so hard I actually cracked the ground beneath me. Kicking my legs furiously, I knocked him off and rolled out of the way as the other vampire stomped where my head had been. I grabbed the vampire on the ground by the feet and swung him around, knocking his friend over. Still holding onto his foot, I pushed myself to my feet and my back collided with something hard and cold.

Whipping my head around, I realized that I was standing back to back with Emmett. "Stick with me, little sister," I heard him yell over the tumult of voices, growls, high pitched whines, and snarls. "You're stronger than they are, but they've been fighting longer."

That was obvious. The vampire's whose foot I was holding started kicking at me and I twisted his leg around until it broke. He was lying on his stomach now, clawing at the ground as I kept twisting and twisting until the bones all snapped and his leg came loose in my arms. I tried not to think about that too much. The other vampire lunged at me then and I dropped the leg. He slammed into me, knocking me back onto the car that I had recently had my head pounded into. I landed on the hood again, not particularly pleased to be back in this position.

But all other thoughts flew out of my mind when the vampire pinned me down and ripped his teeth into my throat. I realized that if he got the chance to bite me again, he would rip my head off of my body. I struggled against him, but the moment his teeth left my throat, the burning started all over again. I gasped and screamed, all of my nerve endings on fire. Emmett ripped him off before he could bite me again. The fury on Emmett's face would have been priceless if I wasn't in so much pain. As it was, I could barely focus on not kicking Emmett with my thrashing legs as he easily dismembered the vampire that had bitten me. I groaned when he grabbed me and pulled me off of the car. I landed with an audible thump on the ground. He leaned me against the driver's door, blocking me with his body. We were hidden behind the car, shielded from the fight for a few, precious moments. "Shit!" I yelled, grabbing my neck. "That fucking _hurts_!"

Emmett had been growling fiercely, but when he heard me cussing like that, he choked a little on his own growl and it turned into a low chuckle. "Where did you get that dirty mouth from, Bella Swan?" He asked. "Surely your mother didn't teach you to talk like that."

"Actually, I don't think Renee would have cared," I murmured as the burning started to lessen. The pain abated and my mind was free to think about something else again. Emmett chuckled again and looked back at me.

"You okay?" He asked. "Bites hurt, whether you're a vampire or a human."

I nodded. I took a few moments to survey the fight as I sat in the snow behind Emmett, my body still recovering from the paralyzing pain of having been bitten…again. When I looked out at the Cullens, all bravely gathered together, fighting for me, fighting against such horrible odds, I felt sick to my stomach. We weren't losing, but we weren't winning either. The Cullens, save Emmett, who was shielding me, and the other five vampires were packed tightly together, leaving virtually no space between them, forcing the vampires to come at them one at a time. My eyes widened a little in shock. I had never seen Esme fight before. She was absolutely ferocious. It blew my mind. She thrashed and kicked and lunged and snapped her teeth at anything that came too close to her.

Carlisle seemed to fight with one eye trained on her. I noticed immediately that the vampires were trying to avoid one of the women I didn't recognize. While I was watching her, one of them strayed too close. She reached her hand out in a fast blur and just barely touched him. But he was down on the ground shaking as though he had been electrocuted. Pieces of skin and body parts littered the ground. They rained down on us. Rosalie, Jasper, and Alice were all clumped together, their backs touching, trying to fight off six or seven vampires that were lashing out at them. Despite their rock hard skin, all of them were sliced open and wounded in several places. "We need to help them," I said to Emmett, noticing right away the desperation in Rosalie's eyes.

He dragged me to my feet, throwing both of us back into the fray. I was feeling a little dizzy and incredibly weak. Emmett tucked me between Alice and Rosalie, both of whom clustered around me like I was the Holy Grail or something. The vampires we were fighting couldn't even get close to me, which was fine with me. I was feeling weaker with each second that passed. I hadn't fed yet and I knew that I needed to. I would have been dead ten times over by now if the Cullens hadn't of showed up. One of the vampires grabbed Rosalie and tried to yank her forward. But I pulled her back, locking my arms around her waist as I swiveled on my hips and struck my foot out, kicking the vampire in the chest.

"Thanks," Rosalie said breathlessly when I released my grip on her. She flashed me a grateful smile, possibly the first real smile she had ever given me.

I hadn't seen the black liquid slowly moving toward us. No one had. Not until it was too late. But I heard Stella shout to me suddenly. She and the others were perched up on the roof of one of the buildings, the one safe place for them to be at the moment. The vampires had forgotten them. "Bella!" She yelled and the desperation in her voice made me turn toward her. That was when I saw it. But I didn't know what it was at first. Something in the way it crept toward us, slinking over the snow, staining everything it touched inky black, was terrifying. It was so close, the nearest edge of the pooling black liquid was only a few feet from me. "They cut the pipeline!" Stella shouted. "You have to"-

I didn't hear the rest of what she was saying because all of the sudden the liquid lit up into a bright wall of fire. I felt the flames licking against my skin before I could move. A high pitched scream next to me ripped me from my own pain and I saw that Rosalie was on fire. Grabbing her, I threw both of us as far from the conflagration as I could. We landed in the snow, tangled up together, both of us burning. I clawed into the ground, grabbing clumps of snow and throwing them on her to douse the flames. I didn't even care that I was on fire. I couldn't let Rosalie die. She didn't even like me and here she was, fighting to save me, dying to save me. The burning was surrounding me and then, suddenly, it stopped.

I blinked a couple of times, lying on my back. I could see the stars above me, but they were quickly being obscured by the black smoke from the fires. I was having a hard time seeing anything out of my right eye and that was a bit disconcerting. The snow was seeping in through my shirt. I was totally wet. Carlisle had grabbed me and rolled me away from Rosalie, through the snow, to put out the flames eating into my right side. I was vaguely aware that I was having a hard time feeling my right arm and leg. Then I tried to move my arm and the pain that shot through me was unlike anything I had ever felt. I heard a gut wrenching scream and I thought it was Rosalie, but when Carlisle started trying to comfort me, I realized that it was me.

"It's okay," he was saying over and over, trying to keep me still, trying to keep me from hurting myself, even though he didn't want to touch me because he knew that would hurt me too much. "It's okay. You're okay. Just stop thrashing around. You're going to hurt yourself. Bella, please!" He said, his heart breaking a little in his eyes. "Please! You have to calm down."

I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even nod really. But I tried to stop moving and that was harder than I thought it would be. My body just wanted to flail around. It wanted to do anything it could to try to relieve the pain. I felt like my mind was starting to disconnect from everything around me. I struggled so hard to hold on. I didn't want to lose sight of Carlisle. He looked like an angel leaning over me. His blonde hair looked a little singed and his face was covered with dirt, or ash, or both. But he was still an angel. "Shhh," he said, running a comforting hand through my hair. "It's okay."

Slowly, I came back to myself. I became aware that I could hear footsteps running away. I could hear the fires crackling and whooshing as they consumed the buildings that made up what little there was of Barrow's Main Street. I could hear heartbeats. I looked around, desperate to see Eben, Stella, Beau, and Lucy. Esme had helped them off of the roof. They were standing away from the fire, away from the fight. They looked absolutely horrified. I realized then that there wasn't a fight anymore. I couldn't hear the sounds of fighting. All I could hear was the fire. "What…," I began, trailing off as another wave of pain hit me. "What's going on?" I asked, my words coming out in a gasp.

"They broke open the oil pipeline as a last resort. It didn't take them long to realize that they wouldn't be able to kill us. They had us outnumbered, but we're too strong when we're together. They lit the oil as a diversion so they could escape. I'm going to have to move you now, okay?" He said. He looked extremely apologetic when he said this. I didn't understand why until I felt him lift my body from the ground and the pain shot through me as though I had been lit on fire again. I knew I was screaming this time. But I also heard another scream. Turning my head, I saw Emmett cradling Rosalie. He was lifting her from the ground as well. The side of her body facing me was singed black. My eyes met his and he nodded a little. She was still alive.

Thank God. Relief flooded through me. I tried to count everyone to make sure they were all there as Carlisle carried me away from Main Street, but I couldn't make out all of the faces. Blackness was starting to creep into the edges of my consciousness again. I didn't know if vampires could pass out. But I had a feeling that blackness wasn't a good thing. So I fought against it. I made myself focus on the pain because it kept me alert. I heard someone say, "The roads are all closed." Then I heard someone else say, "It doesn't matter. We can see perfectly in the dark. We can't run with them like this. And if the wheels get stuck in the snow, we'll just push the damn car."

There was a long time in which we were waiting for something. Carlisle was still holding me. Then a warm hand slipped into mine. I hadn't even realized that my eyes were closed until I had to force myself to open them. Stella was standing over me. She was smiling a little, but tears were running down her cheeks, dripping on my skin. It hurt when they dripped onto the burned parts, but I didn't have the heart to tell her. She looked so sad. "You did it, Bella," she whispered to me softly, stroking my hair as she held my hand. "You got them here. We're safe now."

She held my hand until a big truck pulled up in front of us. Jasper was driving it. Carlisle laid me down in the bed of the truck and, instantly, cool arms were wrapped around me. I looked up and saw Alice smiling down at me. She looked so sad too. I reached up to touch her face with the hand the "alpha" vampire had mangled, but she caught it with her own and brought it to her lips. She gently kissed my knuckles. "The ride will be a little bumpy," she declared. "But I'll hold onto you. You'll be okay."

I nodded and let myself relax in her arms. I heard another truck pull up beside the one I was lying in. Esme and two of the vampires I didn't know climbed in the back with me. Esme sat next to me and leaned down, lightly brushing her lips against my forehead. "Stella and Eben are in front with Jasper," she said softly.

"Is that a good idea?" I asked, my voice a low mumble.

She laughed a little. "He'll be fine," she promised. "Lucy and Beau are riding in the other truck with Carlisle."

I nodded again and let my thoughts drift as the truck lurched forward. Pain shot through me again, but I gritted my teeth against it and held back the scream this time. I could feel the wind blowing through the back of the truck, but Alice was blocking most of it. The little bit that managed to bite against my skin only served to aggravate my wounds even more. I wondered if I would have any scars. I wondered if Rosalie would. She always prided herself on her beauty. I thought she would kill me if the burns left any scars on her flawless skin. I didn't really care about how I looked. I had only ever wanted to look good for Edward. I wasn't sure what hurt more, the pain of being jostled around as the Jasper struggled to get the truck through the snow covered, icy roads, or the knowledge that Edward hadn't come when everyone else had.

I don't remember much about the journey out of Barrow. Just that it seemed to take forever. My whole body ached and burned at the same time. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, but I couldn't, not anymore. My mind, able to comprehend so much at the same time, was able to feel every little facet of the pain I was experiencing. It was excruciating. But Esme and Alice were there, both comforting me, both whispering into my ear that everything would be okay. I didn't feel like it would be okay. And I think I accused them of lying to me at one point, though I don't really remember doing it, because Alice suddenly said, "Bella Swan! You know better than that. _I _would never lie to you." I don't think she emphasized the word "I" to suggest that Esme would, but I really didn't know what she was trying to imply. At one point, Alice's phone rang and she spoke so lowly into it that I couldn't hear anything she said, even with my new and improved vampire hearing.

Eventually, I noticed the sky lightening. The farther from Barrow we got, the closer we came to seeing the sun again. It never actually came out. It remained blanketed behind a thick cover of gray clouds. But it was nice to be able to see without straining, at least, out of my left eye. My right eye was still a little obscured. I don't know how long we had been driving. I think we stopped for gas a few times. I don't really remember. Finally, we pulled into the parking lot of a hotel and Alice told me that we were in Fairbanks, which as it turned out, was a hell of a long way from Barrow.

Alice carried me into a room and laid me down on one of the two full beds sitting side by side. The bedspread scratched against my burns and I groaned. Alice was back at my side in less than a second, scooping me up and discarding the offending material. The sheets were softer and I settled into them when Alice set me down again. Before I closed my eyes, I saw Emmett carrying Rosalie into the room. He laid her down on the bed next to mine. I knew I couldn't go to sleep, but I wanted to check out mentally for a little while. I let my mind go, wandering where it would. I could hear heartbeats in the room next door and I knew from how they were breathing that Eben, Stella, Lucy, and Beau were asleep.

I was vaguely aware of people coming in and out of the room. I heard Carlisle ask me some questions, but I couldn't really understand what he was saying and I didn't have the strength to answer him. I think that alarmed him, but I didn't really care. I was having a hard time caring about much of anything. I heard the hotel room door open and the sudden silence and stillness in the room startled me a little. Until then, I had heard the others moving about, talking to each other in low voices. But this quiet, it meant something. I struggled a little to come back to myself when I felt cold hands cupping my cheeks.

And then I smelled him. Honey, lilac, and sunshine. It was the most amazing smell. I blinked a couple of times, trying to fight through the haziness in my right eye. He was leaning over me, his face only six inches from mine. And he was staring at me, just staring at me, like he was memorizing me. I couldn't read anything in his face. His eyes were the rich topaz color that I remembered. That meant he had fed recently, so he was in a good mood. He didn't speak. He breathed over me and I felt the burning stop. His breath was like a cooling balm. I could barely speak, but when I did, I could only say one word. "Edward."


	15. Too Late

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Fifteen: Too Late:

_Edward POV_

I took a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Mexico City. Fortunately, it was a cloudy day. I would have gone whether the sun was out or not, but it took considerable less planning with the clouds protecting me from exposure. I would run through the streets of Rio with the sunlight fracturing off of the diamonds, as she called them, under my skin and risk exposing myself for what I really was if only to see her one more time. From Mexico City, I hopped onto a connecting flight in Houston that took me to Portland. The Houston airport had been bright, sunlight flooding in through the windows. I bought a hooded jacket that said "Texas, The Lone Star State" on the front in a gift shop and covered my face as best I could, keeping my hands stuffed up in my jacket sleeves. No one noticed me. People in airports are so oblivious to everything around them. The only thing they care about is making their flights. The best place to lose yourself is an airport, as Bell aptly demonstrated in Phoenix. No one had cared about a seventeen year old girl running through the airport like hell hounds were snapping at her heels. No one had noticed her then, like no one noticed me now. It was evening by the time I landed in Anchorage, Alaska.

I didn't bother to rent a car. I remembered what my family said about running to Barrow. The roads were closed or something. I took off from the airport, barreling through the forests, through the snow, over the ice. It didn't matter what was in my way. I _had_ to get to Barrow. I had let Bella down so many times in my life, I wasn't going to do it again. Not this time, not when it really mattered. I had no idea what I'd say to her when I saw her. I didn't even know if she'd want to see me. Maybe she'd moved on like I had told her to, like I had tried to convince myself that I wanted. But I really didn't. I never wanted Bella to move on and forget me, not really. Part of me hoped that she was pining anyway for me, just as lost as I was. I knew it was sick. It was pathetic. I had left her after all. But still, I loved her. I always would. The selfish creature that I was, I wanted her to love me forever too.

I ran and ran until I swore my legs would stop working. Then I ran some more. I didn't stop for anything. I didn't stop to feed or think. I didn't care that what I was doing was irrational – running through the Alaskan wilderness to join the family that I thought was completely sick of me in order to see a girl who probably hated me. But I wasn't going to stop. I was never going to stop until I saw her again. I knew Carlisle and Esme would welcome me back with open arms. They truly did love me like parents. I was their prodigal son, so many times over. Maybe one day I would learn my lesson and stop running away from everything. The sad part was that I knew how fucked up my reactions to things were. But I couldn't stop myself. In the woods that day, when I lied to Bella so well she believed it without question, I knew that I should stop. I knew that I should just listen to Alice and give in and let myself be happy. I knew I shouldn't break her heart. But I did it anyway because I was scared. I was scared for her, that what I was would get her hurt or killed, and I was scared for me because I had never let myself get so close to another creature before. I had never let my happiness be so dependent on someone else. Giving up control like that, putting my life in someone else's hands, it was the most terrifying thing.

I could see the smoke for miles before I actually reached Barrow. It was thick and black. The air smelled like oil. My heart sunk when I saw the fires. The entire town was consumed with flames. The buildings had fallen down, crumbled heaps of ash and burning wood. It seemed like everything was on fire. I sniffed the air, trying to catch a familiar scent. But I couldn't smell anything but burning oil. Everyone was gone. I didn't understand. I had told them that I would meet them here. What would make them leave like this? I checked my phone, but Alice hadn't left me anymore messages. I sank down to my knees in the snow, suddenly overcome with dread. What if I had been too late? What is Bella was hurt, or worse? What if they had left because there was no one here? What if they hadn't made it in time? If I could have cried, tears would have been spilling down my face. If my heart could beat, it would have been pounding frantically in my chest. I was having the vampire version of a panic attack.

I couldn't seem to move for several minutes. All I could see was Bella's face. Visions of her broken, bleeding, and dead all passed before my eyes. "No!" I roared, venting all of my anger out into the darkness above me. I fell over in the snow, dry sobs wracking my body as I curled into myself. I didn't know it then, but my position was very similar to how Bella had been laying when Sam Uley found her in the forest the day I left. I wasn't cold, but I couldn't stop shaking. My whole body seemed to be shutting down. I didn't need to hear Alice confirm it. I knew that Bella was dead. I could feel it. There was nothing left of Barrow. There had to be nothing left of her too. Finally, the tremors began to slow. I felt like I could breathe again. I don't know how long I had been laying in the snow. My clothes were soaked. Shakily, I willed myself to stand up again. I couldn't get any cell reception in town, so I started running back the way I had come until the little bars flew up on my screen.

I stopped and stared down at my phone for a long time before I punched in Alice's number. It rang twice before she picked up. "Hello?" She said and I could barely hear her. It sounded like she was in a wind tunnel.

"Alice?" I asked. "Alice, where are you? What's going on? I'm in Barrow."

"Shit," I heard her cuss, though I wasn't sure if she was speaking to me or not. When she continued, her voice was so low it was difficult for me to make out the words. It was as though she didn't want someone else to listen to what she was saying. "Edward?" She asked.

"Yeah, it's me," I said.

"I forgot about you," she admitted, breathing something like sigh of relief into the phone. "You actually came."

"Of course I came," I shot back angrily. "I _said_ I was coming. And what do you mean you forgot about me? What the hell happened here?" I asked, looking back over my shoulder at the wisps of smoke I could see rising into the sky. Barrow was far behind me now. I was closer to Wainwright, where I could get cell reception.

"Things went…," she trailed off. "Well, they went not so great." I wondered what that meant. Usually, Alice was so eager to tell me every little detail of everything. Now, she could barely form an articulate sentence.

"Alice," I said, my voice warning her that I wasn't playing games. "I need to know."

"Just," she said, frustration ringing in her voice, "come to Fairbanks. That's where we're headed. I'll text you when we've checked into a hotel."

"A hotel?" I asked, surprised.

"It's a long story," she said.

I gritted my teeth, her evasiveness trying on my nerves. "What about Bella?" I asked.

"What about her?" Alice hedged.

"What aren't you telling me? Fuck, Alice! She's my mate. Tell me what's happening!" I demanded.

Alice scoffed a little on the other end. "Oh, so now you'll admit that she's your mate? What about the past six months? What about all that time before, when you were so convinced that Bella could never be what you wanted her to be? What we all wanted her to be?" She threw that in just to remind me that my unilateral decision to leave Bella and never contact her again had applied to everyone.

"I was wrong," I said simply.

"You're an idiot, Edward," she hissed into the phone. I heard someone groaning on the other end of the line. It sounded like Bella. Every nerve ending in my body lit on fire when I heard her. Hope swelled in my chest, but I had to push it down. I could have been wrong. That could have been anyone.

"Alice," I said, everything fading away around me. "What was Bella?"

She stayed silent for several long moments before answering. "Yes," she said softly.

"She's alive?" I asked, allowing the hope to overwhelm me. I felt it surge through my body, strengthening all of my muscles. I didn't care that I had to run all the way back down to Fairbanks. Bella was alive!

"Just come meet us," she said. Her voice sounded so tired now. She was hiding something, but I couldn't figure out what. It didn't really matter anyway. Bella was alive and that was all that mattered.

"I will," I promised. "Don't leave without me this time," I warned.

"We wouldn't have left Barrow without you either if you hadn't taken your good 'ol time getting there," she shot back. Alice wasn't normally this short with me. Something had happened. But I knew that I would never get her to tell me over the phone.

"I'm right behind you," I said, flipping my phone shut. I started running again. The trek seemed even longer going back. I loved running, but after today, I was going to enjoy walking a little more. I hadn't put so many miles on my legs in years. I finally reached Fairbanks. It was the middle of the afternoon, but clouds obscured the sun. Alice had texted me the name of the hotel while I was running and I easily found it.

As I stood, staring up at the two story building, I felt nervous. I had no idea how Bella would react to me being here. The possibilities both terrified and excited me. Would she be happy? Angry? Sad? Indifferent? Indifferent would have been the worst. I needed her to feel something toward me. Anger I could work with, any passionate emotion I could work with, but not indifference. I could smell my family in one of the rooms on the first floor. I could faintly smell Bella's floral scent. But I couldn't hear her heartbeat. I could hear heartbeats all around me. But not hers. I didn't know what that meant. I couldn't even imagine. When I could finally make myself move again, I strode straight up to the door and opened it without knocking.

I couldn't even say who was in the room or what it looked like. All I saw was Bella. Everything else just faded into nothingness. I was vaguely aware that the room had become very quiet and very still. I could feel Jasper sending me waves of calm, but they did little to plug up the emotional rabbit hole I started spiraling down when my eyes landed on her face. The right side of her body was singed black, as though she had been lit on fire. Her clothes were tattered, revealing the blackened, peeling skin beneath. Even her face, her beautiful face, was burned. Her right eye was smeared with ash and swollen and I doubted, when her eyes were actually open, if she could see anything out of it.

But her eyes were closed and I couldn't hear her heartbeat. My heart seemed to shatter into a million little pieces. I could barely stand. I wasn't breathing. The whole world seemed to fall down on me. I felt like I should have been screaming or crying or cursing God. But I couldn't say anything. She didn't have a heartbeat. She wasn't breathing. Slowly, carefully, I moved over to her. I leaned down, my face only inches from hers, and gently cupped her cheeks. Her skin was so cold. It was as cold as mine. She was dead. Bella was dead. I had been too late. After everything, I had failed her. That failure would live with me for the rest of my life, which I already knew wouldn't be very long. I would put my faith in everything that Bella had ever tried to argue. She had believed that I had a soul. I didn't. But I would believe her now. I would go to the Volturi and beg them to kill me and, if they wouldn't, I would make them. She believed so much that there was good in me. Maybe there was enough good that I would get to see her again after I was dead. Even if only for a moment. I just needed her again.

Then the most amazing thing happened. She opened her eyes. I thought I was hallucinating for a moment, but I would never have hallucinated this. Her eyes were a dull red color, the dull red of a vampire that hadn't fed in a long time. I stared at her, unable to comprehend anything that was happening. Then it all started to fall into place. She still smelled like freesia and strawberries. But the smell didn't make the venom pool in my mouth like it used to. I couldn't hear her heartbeat because she didn't have one. She really was dead. But not in the traditional sense of the word. No, she was a vampire. Bella. My Bella. She was a vampire.

She opened her mouth and said one word, one little word that seemed to kick start my long dormant heart. "Edward," she said. She wasn't surprised. She wasn't anything really. She just said my name, almost as though it was the most obvious thing in the world that I would be there.

"Bella," I said back. Her name felt so natural flowing off of my tongue, I wondered how I had been able to deny myself the pleasure of saying and hearing her name for so long. She smiled a little at me, but it pained her to smile.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but Carlisle came in through the door before she could. He was carrying two foxes. "Edward?" He asked, stopping in the doorway. He seemed surprised to see me. I didn't want to look away from her, but I had to address the man whom I considered my father.

"Carlisle," I said, looking back at him. "I came as soon as I could."

"Well, you missed everything," Emmett said, his voice gravelly, like he had been crying. I hadn't even realized that he was in the room. I looked for him and saw him kneeling on the floor next to the other bed. Someone was lying on the bed. But I didn't know who it was. I looked at the form and then it dawned on me. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. It was Rosalie. She had been burned so badly I could barely recognize her. "What took you so long?" He asked, looking up at me. He was holding one of Rosalie's hands in his own, cradling it like it was the most precious thing in the world. To him, it was.

"I was in South America," I began, but my excuses sounded lame even to my ears. I should have been with them. I never should have left my family. I never should have left Bella. A thousand different regrets crashed into me at once.

"I don't care," Emmett said, shaking his head. "Look at them," he commanded. He let go of Rosalie's hand, carefully placing it on the bed sheet. He stood to his full height and, I had to admit, I was a little intimidated. "Look at them, Edward!" He yelled. "Look at them! This is your fault. All of this is your fault! If we hadn't of left, this never would have happened." Emmett was around the bed, in front of me, before I could blink. His actions seemed to catch everyone off guard. Esme gasped. Carlisle dropped the foxes, trying to grab Emmett. The foxes were still alive and they tried to crawl away, but Jasper and Alice pounced on them. Emmett grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall, shrugging off Carlisle like he was some weak human. The whole room seemed to shake. I couldn't take my eyes off of his face. He was so angry. I had never seen him like this. His eyes were totally black.

"Emmett," I said, throwing up my hands in defense. But he didn't listen. He didn't even acknowledge that I had spoken.

"They're like this because of you!" He yelled. "You're the most selfish, stupid fucking shit I've ever met! How the fuck could you even come here now? Don't you see what you've done to her?" It wasn't clear to me if he was talking about Bella or Rosalie or both. His voice broke a little. "Don't you see what you've done?" He asked again. The anger in his eyes started to recede, replaced by a deep sadness that seemed to penetrate every cell in his body. "Don't you see?" He asked again, shaking his head. His face scrunched up, like he was trying to cry, but nothing would come out.

Then he was hugging me. Jasper staggered back into an armchair, overcome by the emotions in the room. "Emmett," I said slowly. He had his face buried in my shoulder, his massive frame convulsing as he sobbed, or tried to. I put my arms around him. "I'm sorry," I said. I didn't know what else to say. There was nothing I could say. "I'm sorry. You're right. I've fucked everything up. I'm sorry."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carlisle take one of the foxes from Alice. He moved over to Bella's bed. I knew what he was going to do and it broke my heart a little that it all had to be this way. He cut the fox's throat and pressed it gently down to Bella's lips. The blood tasted better warm. It tasted better when the animal was still alive. "Drink," he whispered, smoothing her hair out with his hand. "You need to feed, Bella," he said. "You won't heal unless we can get some blood in you." Her eyes were glued to me, watching my every move. There was something new in her stare though. Something accusatory, but also something a little vacant. She didn't want to lose sight of me, but it was almost as if looking at me made her angry, or pained her in some way, and she was trying to shield herself from that pain. She opened her mouth without thinking and let the blood drip down her throat. She stared at me the entire time she drank. It was incredibly erotic. I was immediately disgusted with myself for thinking that.

Emmett pulled away from me and wiped his eyes with his hands, even though there were no real tears to wipe away. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. I looked up at him and he looked so lost. I nodded a little. Then he walked over to Jasper and took the other fox from him. He cut its throat just like Carlisle and offered it to Rosalie. He was so gentle with her. He held it to her mouth so she wouldn't have to move. And, just like Carlisle, he stroked her hair while she fed. "It's okay, baby," he whispered. "You're gonna be okay, Rose." I felt like I was intruding on some incredibly private moment just by looking at them. My brother could be a lot of things, but I had never seen him be so tender. Rosalie was his whole world, just like Bella was mine.

Once Bella had finished with the fox, Carlisle gave it to Esme to dispose of. Bella's eyes fluttered closed again. I started to move toward her, but Alice stood up and, when I saw her face, I froze in place. She was livid. Nothing but rage showed in her eyes. Her fists were clenched at her sides and she looked like, if I so much as breathed the wrong way, she would kill me. "What?" I asked, genuinely surprised at the emotions on her face. I tried to read her thoughts, but her mind was completely blank. She was so angry she couldn't even think.

"Outside," she growled. "Right now. We need to talk."


	16. Doubts

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Sixteen: Doubts:

_Alice POV_

I stormed out of the hotel room, Edward following obediently behind me. I wanted to get far enough away so that we wouldn't scare the humans in the building. I wasn't really sure how this conversation was going to go. But I didn't want to be too far because I wanted my family to be able to hear what I was about to say. They needed it hear it. Further, Edward needed to know that they were hearing it. He needed to know that _Bella_ could hear it. And I needed Bella to know that I was on her side. I spun around on my heel, catching him off guard. He actually stumbled to a stop. It would have been endearing if I wasn't so angry with him. To his credit, he just stood there, ready to take the verbal whipping I was mentally preparing. He even had the decency to look ashamed of himself.

"Edward," I began, my voice shaking, "you and I have always had a different kind of bond than the others. We're about as close as two vampires can get without being mates. Normally," I added, "I wouldn't have to say any of these things. But I want you to _hear_ me say what I have to say. _Really_ hear it. I want my family to hear me say it. And I want Bella to hear me say it. She may not be particularly aware right now, but she can still hear this."

"I know," he said quietly. She could hear my end of the conversation anyway.

"_You_ are a coward," I slowly exclaimed. "I saw that she would come into our lives. I saw how happy you both would be. I saw how her transformation was supposed to have been. _You_, Edward, you were supposed to change her. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. No," I said, my voice a whisper now. I forced myself to block out the images I had seen of Bella injecting herself with vampire venom. Edward didn't need to know that. Not yet. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"Alice," he tried to interrupt, but I growled lowly in my throat and he closed his mouth.

"Do not interrupt me," I said between clenched teeth. "We would have been happy, Edward," I continued. My heart broke just thinking about it. "We would have been a family. I would have had a new sister. Emmett would have done anything for her. She would have been Carlisle's daughter, Esme's daughter. Even Rosalie would have come to love her. I saw things in the future, Edward, that I can't even describe to you because it would hurt you too much to see what could have been." I started mentally reciting _Paradise Lost_ in my mind to keep Edward from seeing that one, little image that would have crushed him. Edward, smiling, devastatingly happy, holding a little baby girl that looked exactly like Bella. That future was gone now.

Fortunately, he didn't pick up on the undercurrent of my thoughts. "We could have had so much," I ranted. "But you ruined it all, Edward. _You_. It wasn't Bella. She should have run screaming from you when you told her what you were. But she didn't. She's the brave one, Edward, not you. You're just a coward. And your actions have caused more pain to more people than you know."

I didn't actually have to breathe, but I felt like I needed to take a long breath to prepare for my next words. "I've seen what lies ahead for us now, Edward." I shook my head a little. Some of the sadness I felt must have crept into my eyes because he took a step back. "It's going to be extremely difficult. Not just for you, but for all of us. Especially for her. You have to understand, Edward. She was willing to give up everything for you. She would have gladly chosen this life before we left. She would have given up her _soul_ for you if you had just asked her for it. If you had just wanted it. But you never asked her for the one thing she needed you to want. In her mind, that was because you didn't want it. She always thought you could never want her as much as she wanted you. She thought that you could never love her as much because you never asked her to become a vampire for you. You never wanted to express just how forever your love really was _in that way_ and, because of that, she never thought you loved her at all."

"The way this happened," I said, "it changes everything. Our future, the one that should have been so bright and beautiful, it's all paved with sorrow now. It's all paved with anger. I can't honestly tell you what she'll do. She hasn't made up her mind yet. I don't know when she will. But just because you're back doesn't mean things can go back to the way they were, Edward. They won't. If you want to have any chance with her, you're going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than you did before."

"I'll do anything," he promised quietly.

"You may have to," I said sadly. "Edward, you may have to give her up if you want to get her back." He looked up at me with confusion in his eyes and I just shook my head. There were so many things I couldn't see. So many blank spots in Bella's future now. "But listen to me now, Edward. This is the most important thing that I have to say to you. It's the most important thing you'll ever hear me say," I continued darkly. "If you ever hurt her like this again, if you ever leave her again, I will cease to be your sister, Edward. I will choose her over you every time from now on. I will never leave her again. I don't care if she decides she doesn't want you. I don't care if she falls in love with someone else. You will stay by her side in this family no matter what or you won't be my family anymore. Do you understand that?" I asked.

He looked at me for a long time and then nodded. "I understand, Alice," he said.

"You will not leave this family again," I said. "You will not put Esme and Carlisle through this again. So stop being a coward and, for once in your life, man up," I finished.

"I'm not leaving again," he promised. "I'm not leaving her again, no matter what happens. And I'm not leaving any of you."

"Okay," I said, nodding a little. I breathed out a sigh of relief that I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"Can we go back now?" He asked, flashing me a crooked half-smile and slinging his arm around my shoulders.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yes, we can go back now," I said. As we started walking back, I tried to focus on Bella. I tried to focus on the future. But everything was so hazy and indistinct. I would see images of her, but they would change so rapidly, I was never really sure what I was seeing. One thing I knew for certain, the future, whatever it was, looked dark.

………………………..

_Bella POV_

When Carlisle put the fox to my lips and the blood started to trickle down my throat, it was all I could do not to tear my eyes away from Edward. The blood tasted so good, so warm. I'd never tasted anything so perfect in my life. Of course, I _was_ extremely thirsty and that probably made it taste better than it was. I remembered Edward's tofu comment. But that damn fox tasted so much better than tofu. As soon as the blood hit my tongue, I started to feel a little bit stronger. It wasn't too noticeable. I couldn't really find the energy to get off of the bed. But the pain started to lessen a little. I didn't feel quite so much like I was barely holding my head above the waters of pooling unconsciousness.

Still, my eyes were glued to Edward and I couldn't make any sense of the emotions I was feeling. On the one hand, I was entirely elated to see him. He had been my whole life, the proverbial planet that I gravitated around. While he was gone, I had been some stray moon, unable to break free of orbit even though there was nothing left to circle. But now he was back. My planet was back. But was he really my planet anymore? Had he found some better distraction? When he said my name only moments before, he had said it with such relief, such amazement it seemed. But I didn't know what that meant. Was he just happy that I was still alive, in a sense, and that he didn't have to feel guilty about my death?

I was also a little bit surprised that he had come at all. I had always hoped he would. Somewhere in my heart, I had expected it. But then, I had also believed that he wouldn't. After all, he didn't love me. He didn't want me . Why would he bother? Yet, here he was. Late. But he was still here. While he was gone, I had tried to push all thoughts of him away. I had tried to forget. I had tried to move on, however feebly. And now that he was back, all of that love that I had been repressing came crashing back down on me in huge, painful waves. I didn't remember it hurting so much to love him. I felt like I couldn't breathe, like I needed to be gasping for air just to survive. Edward had been my fairy tale prince, but that image of him was tarnished now. I didn't think he could ever be that again.

I didn't know what he would be to me now. Even if he wanted me back, even if he loved me, I didn't honestly think we could go back to the way we had been before. I wasn't the weak human anymore. He wasn't the godlike vampire. We were equal now. And I wasn't sure I could ever really trust him. Of course, I was getting ahead of myself. In all likelihood, he had just come back to make sure that none of his family had gotten hurt in the fight. Then he would leave again. And I wasn't sure if I wanted him to stay because another part of me was so angry to see him. That part had been silently cheering when Emmett slammed him up against the wall. That part had been secretly hoping that Emmett would rip one of his arms off or something. But as I stared at him, absently sucking the blood down into my throat, an emotion crossed his face that I couldn't quite place at first. Then it clicked. Lust. His eyes had darkened with lust. Something about what I was doing right now had awakened the side of him that I had always loved seeing when I was human, but so rarely got to see because it was dangerous. That animal side. That seventeen year old side of him that he kept so well under control.

Here I was, lying on a hotel room bed, half dead from burns and other wounds, and he was staring at me lustfully. I didn't know whether to start yelling at him for being so freakin' insensitive or to laugh smugly at the effect this seemed to be having on him. But then he looked away, embarrassment staining his features, and the laughter died in my throat before it was born. He was embarrassed of feeling anything toward me. I had been such a fool to even entertain the hope that he had come back for me. Surely, he hadn't. He must have just been surprised to see me here. God, he must pity me so much. Those emotions in his face that I hadn't been able to read, they were just pity and guilt. He had never wanted me to be a vampire in the first place. I probably repulsed him. I could only imagine how horrible I looked. The last of the blood from the fox dripped into my mouth and I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to see him anymore. I couldn't stand to look at him. I didn't want him to see my whole being break in my eyes. I didn't want him to feel even sorrier for me than he already did.

Alice started talking and I could hear the angry edge to her voice. Vaguely, I heard her and Edward leave the room. Once he was gone, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn't realized how much I had tensed up while he was here. "Bella?" Carlisle asked, leaning over me again. My eyes fluttered open, gradually focusing on his face. "How are you feeling?"

"A little better," I mumbled. He nodded.

"I'm going to try to bring back something bigger next time for you and Rosalie. But I'll have to kill it first. The blood won't be as appealing, but it will still nourish you," he explained. This time, I nodded. "You're going to have to drink quite a bit. It will take a few days for you to heal to the point where we can move on." His voice sounded so clinical, I had to repress the shudder that threatened to roll up and down my spine.

I didn't bother to reply. He was already moving. Jasper went with him, leaving me alone in the room with Emmett, Rosalie, and Esme. Seeing Edward again had woken up something inside of me that I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. Esme was staring me, the same pity in her eyes that I thought I had seen in Edward's. Suddenly, I just wanted to be alone. I knew Emmett wouldn't leave Rosalie, but I couldn't stand Esme staring at me like that. Besides, I didn't really want Emmett to leave. I couldn't stand to think that they all just pitied me, that once I was healed they would go on their way and leave me alone again. They had left me once, after proclaiming that I was such an important member of their family. What was to stop them from leaving again? The room became unbearably claustrophobic to me all of the sudden.

"I need you to leave," I said and Esme's face dropped so much it actually pained me. "I need to be alone with Emmett and Rosalie." I could hear Alice outside yelling at Edward and her anger only seemed to fuel mine even more. I tuned her out, not needing to feed off of her emotions. I was having a difficult time with my own.

"Bella," she said mournfully, rising to her feet. She didn't want to leave. She eyes seemed to plead with me. But I couldn't look at her for very long without feeling an irrational anger build up in my chest. I would always love Renee, but she had never really been a mother to me. Esme, on the other hand, was everything I had ever wanted in a mother. I had even started to think of her as one. I liked to delude myself into thinking that she had viewed me as a daughter as well. But I knew better now. No mother would just leave her daughter without a word. But Esme had. Obviously, she hadn't reciprocated my feelings at all.

"No," I shook my head. "I need to be alone. Just leave," I said. She looked like she wanted to cry. A part of my resolve fell apart at that. But I couldn't be in the room with so many of them at the same time. It was like staring into the future I could have had all the while knowing that it would never be mine. "Just leave!" I yelled, my throat hoarse and raw. She fled the room, stifling a sob. I immediately felt horrible. Closing my eyes again, I pressed my fist to my forehead. I was starting to hyperventilate. But I felt a little better with only Emmett and Rosalie in the room with me.

They were the only two people I really felt like I could trust. Carlisle was helping me because he felt obligated to. I was his patient. He wouldn't leave me until I was healed. But I was convinced that was all I really was to him. Alice was trickier. I knew that Alice cared for me. She had comforted me during my darkest moments in the back of the truck, when I truly thought I might be dying. But I couldn't forget that she had abandoned me too. She had chosen to blindly follow Edward's orders instead of being true to her best friend. What kind of friend was she if she could just leave so easily? If she could go without saying goodbye? She had never even tried to call me. She had just cut me off. _It will be like we never existed at all_.

Taking all of the physical things that had reminded me of him, of all of the Cullens, hadn't been enough. They had always existed in my memory. They had always existed in the halls of Forks High School. I would have had to have gotten a lobotomy for them to never have existed at all. Even then, some part of me would have always remembered them. I was sure of that. You don't just forget people like the Cullens. You don't forget any vampire. Because I couldn't trust Edward, I couldn't trust Alice either. My love for her, though different, had been just as deep.

Emmett and Rosalie, on the other hand, I knew I could trust. Emmett had called me "little sister" back in Barrow. He still clearly felt the same way about me as I felt about him. And I didn't blame him for leaving with his family. They were all he had. I didn't expect him to want to stay behind with the human. No, he belonged with them. He was one of them. I wasn't. It was as simple as that. Rosalie had never lied to me about anything. She had never withheld anything from me. She had never pretended to feel something she didn't. No, I knew when Rosalie hated me, she really hated me. When she was indifferent to me, I knew that too. Even when she was a little friendly, I knew it wasn't forced. She felt what she felt and she never tried to hide it from me. Really, she had been the most honest of all of them. But something had shifted in our relationship. I felt it in Barrow. She hadn't looked at me like an enemy. She had looked at me like a friend. Even more, she had looked at me almost like a sister.

Rosalie started whimpering and I turned my head to look at her. "It burns," she murmured. "God, it burns."

"I know, baby," Emmett said, wrapping his large hands around her dainty one. "I don't know what to do, Rose." He started stroking her hair again. "I don't know what to do."

I had an idea, but I wasn't really sure if I could carry it out. I felt so weak. I wasn't sure if I could lift myself from the bed. But I had to try. I owed her that much. If I could comfort her in some way, I would try. Every muscle in my body screamed at me when I started pushing myself up from the bed. Emmett looked at me in alarm, but I waved him off. "I know what I'm doing," I muttered between clenched teeth. I repressed the urge to scream. The burned parts of my skin scratched against my clothes and I groaned a little. The good thing about Emmett, like the good thing about Charlie, was that he didn't hover. If I said I knew what I was doing, he believed me.

"Bella," he said, concern etched on his face. "You okay?"

I didn't bother to answer that question. I didn't want to lie to him. "I have an idea," I said. I had to crawl over to her bed. I couldn't stand up. Clutching onto the sheets, I pulled myself up until I was laying next to her. "Get on her other side," I said. It would have made a funny picture really, the three of us crammed into a bed barely big enough for two people. And Emmett was so huge, he really took up most of the space. Emmett hung off the side and I was pressed as tightly as I could get into Rosalie's back to keep from falling off and injuring myself further. But the moment that both my icy skin and Emmett's icy skin touched hers, she stopped whimpering. She relaxed between us, sighing a little.

"Is that better?" Emmett asked, touching her every place he could that wasn't burned.

Rosalie nodded a little. "Better," she slurred. "No more burning."

Emmett breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. He looked like he wanted to cry again. Lifting his head, he looked over at me. "Thank you," he said, his eyes shining with gratitude.

"It's the least I could do," I said, biting back a growl. I wasn't in the most comfortable position. But I didn't want to say anything. Rosalie was in a bubble of ice between us and it seemed to make her feel better. So I wouldn't move, not for the world. I heard some commotion outside of the hotel room door and I knew that Edward and Alice were back from their little talk. Alice had been yelling loudly enough for me to hear, but I hadn't really been listening. I didn't really care at that moment what she had to say to him. I didn't want any more of the drama, not for a little while. It was hard enough just trying to keep my grip on consciousness. Esme was telling them that I didn't want anyone in the room with me but Rosalie and Emmett. They couldn't understand that. Edward tried to push by her, but she held him back. I had to thank Esme for that. I knew that staying out of the room was killing her. But she was doing it for me, because I had asked her to. I hadn't asked her to keep the others out, but she knew that was what I wanted. And she was doing that too even though it pained her so much to refuse her children anything.

Carlisle and Jasper came back shortly after and they got into the same argument with Esme that Edward and Alice had. However, she let them through because they each were carrying a deer over their shoulders and it would have looked weird for them to be waiting outside of a hotel room carrying two large, dead animals. However, once Jasper had deposited his deer down on a sheet, he left the room. Carlisle looked quite confused to see all three of us crammed onto Rosalie's bed and he even managed to look angry that I had moved on my own without waiting for him.

He opened his mouth and I swore he was going to yell at me for disregarding my health by being so stubborn and insisting on doing things that I shouldn't when Emmett started speaking. "It's okay, Carlisle," he said. "Rosalie was hurting and Bella knew how to make it stop." His words were filled with the same gratitude that I had seen in his eyes. "Leave the deer, I'll feed them," he said.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Emmett," Carlisle argued. "I shouldn't leave her."

"Bella wants to be alone," Emmett said, growling a little in his throat. I was surprised at how protective and possessive Emmett seemed to be of me. "Well," he amended shortly, "as alone as she can get. I can handle it. I'll get you when she feels up for more company." The hard look in Emmett's eyes left no room for argument. Carlisle nodded slowly, shooting me a concerned and slightly disgruntled look, before leaving.

Emmett fed Rosalie first, which I understood completely. Her injuries were worse than mine. She needed the blood more. When she was finished, he fed me. It was a strangely intimate act to be fed by someone, especially as a vampire. I should have been strong enough to do this and, that I wasn't, made me feel so helpless. He cut a little gash in the deer and hoisted it up, pressing the wound to my mouth. The blood didn't taste nearly as good cool as it did warm. But I knew that I needed to drink it anyway. I was still thirsty and I hated being so weak. I felt even weaker now than I had as a human. It was ridiculous. Vampires were supposed to be strong and I couldn't even stand up. I'd had to crawl to Rosalie's bed. Emmett was watching me feed. He smiled a little when I looked up at him. There was no pity in his eyes. No guilt. Nothing but affection. When I finished, he laid the deer aside and settled back down next to Rosalie.

"Tell me something," he said, his voice gravely from the emotions he had been trying to keep under control.

"What?" I asked. I was feeling more alert now. I looked down at my arm and was surprised to see that the burned skin was slowly starting to reform. It would take a little while, but I knew that, eventually, I would look as though I had never been burned at all.

"Why me and Rosalie?" He asked.

"Well," I said thoughtfully. "Rosalie can't really go anywhere." He laughed at that. It was good to hear him laugh again. "Besides, before the whole fire thing happened, I think we were making some progress."

"She never hated you, you know," Emmett said quietly. "She's got some issues with you, I won't lie about that. But deep down, she does care about you."

"I think I know that now," I said.

"And me?" He asked.

"You told me to stick with you," I said simply.

He was quiet for a while. I looked over at him and saw that he was struggling to keep his composure. "Bella?" He asked, finally finding his voice again.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I don't care what the others do," he said determinedly. "I'm never leaving you again."


	17. Secrets

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Note:

I'm not entirely clear on some aspects of Stephenie Myer's vampires, or if she addressed some of these issues at all, so I may be going a little off in my own direction with some of my descriptions of how vampires heal and all of that.

Chapter Seventeen: Secrets:

_Bella POV_

A day later, I was starting to feel stronger, more like myself. Carlisle kept bringing Rosalie and I animals to feed on, but nothing had tasted quite as good as that first fox, the one I had eaten while so deliriously thirsty. Every time I drank, my mind would wander back to the last meal I'd had as a human - Spam and some saltine crackers. When I'd thought about becoming a vampire before Edward and the Cullens had left Forks, I'd always imagined the process being a little more romantic, like maybe Edward would have made my last meal a candle lit Italian dinner outside under the stars, mushroom ravioli or something as a reminder of how far we'd come. Spam and crackers had never crossed my mind as the last thing I would eat. I regretted that I didn't have better human memories of food, now that I couldn't eat anything without it apparently tasting like ash in my mouth. The blood tasted good, heady and rich, but I wasn't sure if I would ever forget just how the salt and grease in Harry Clearwater's fish fry had combined into such a wonderful taste and I wondered if I would always long for the simple comfort and pleasure of eating a meal prepared by someone I loved.

My burns were no longer black, though they still hurt when I moved and the skin stretched over my muscles. However, I could move around without quite as much pain and I had tried walking by myself, but that didn't work out so well. Emmett wound up having to carry me back to the bed while I protested grumpily about being the weakest vampire on the planet. He had chuckled at that and said something about always being around to carry me when I fell. I would have blushed if I had been able to. The swelling around my right eye had gone down and I could finally see out of it, so I wasn't constantly knocking things over anymore. I hadn't really mastered the whole depth perception thing with just one eye. Carlisle had cracked all of my broken fingers back into position, a process which I would have been quite content to never relive, and they had healed almost instantly once they were in place. It was nice to be able to flex my fist again. I'd never appreciated the simple act of moving my fingers without pain until I couldn't do it anymore. It was amazing the things that people took for granted. As I lay in that hotel room, with nothing to do but listen to Emmett whispering to Rosalie and watch cheesy daytime soap operas, I started thinking about all of the things that I had taken for granted.

Charlie immediately came to mind and I was overwhelmed with a horrible feeling of guilt. I groaned, shoving my fists into my eyes, even though I knew I couldn't cry anymore. What the hell was I going to do about Charlie? I loved my dad, so much more than I had ever told him. I'd had so many missed opportunities with him, times I could have spent with him watching the game or driving around or eating at the diner. What had I been doing instead? Wallowing, over Edward, who was waiting outside of the hotel room door still trying to convince Esme to let him pass even though she had told him a thousand times that I wanted to be alone. A flash of anger shot through me and I clenched my fists. I had missed so much because of Edward, because I'd spent all of those months living like a zombie, never believing for a second that something like what had happened in Barrow would come along to change everything. I should have known just how fragile human life was.

I couldn't just leave Charlie, not after everything I'd put him through, and I knew what Carlisle would say about the whole situation. He would tell me that I had to leave Charlie, that I had to make him believe that I was dead, because it would be too dangerous for him to know about vampires and I couldn't risk his life like that. The more rational part of my brain knew that Carlisle would be right to try to convince me of that. Knowing about vampires _was_ dangerous; I was walking proof of that. But the emotional part of my brain knew that I couldn't just leave him, I couldn't hurt him like that, not again. I never liked to think about the night of the baseball game, when I'd had to convince Charlie that I didn't want to live with him anymore so that James wouldn't bother him trying to get to me. When I thought about that night, the thing I remembered most clearly was how shattered he looked as I walked out of the door.

I shook my head; God, I just wanted to cry so badly. I couldn't figure out how to handle grief as a vampire. My body wasn't reacting the way it was supposed to. My chest should have been tightening, my breath should have been coming in short gasps, hot tears should have been pulsing down my cheeks. Instead, I just laid on that bed, staring at the paint peeling on the ceiling, more aware than I had ever been that my heart wasn't beating, I never needed to breath, and my body wasn't producing anything like tears anymore. It finally dawned on me that I was just a corpse, granted an animated one, but I was dead. All of the things that made a living body truly living had ceased to function in me. For the first time, I wondered if Charlie would even want to see me like this. Could he bare to see his only daughter as a vampire? Would he rather me be dead than what I was now?

Emmett left the room, saying he needed some air. Really, I think he was worried about Rosalie and he didn't want her to see him breakdown. She was having a more difficult time healing because she had been burned over most of her body and needed more blood than I did. She hadn't been whimpering as much, which was a relief to both of us, but she hadn't made _any_ sounds in a while and I knew that worried Emmett. She wasn't unconscious exactly, but she wasn't really aware of anything either, at least I didn't think she was. Carlisle had tried to explain the vampire healing process to me, but I still wasn't clear on the whole thing. He said that when vampires were seriously wounded, they sort of mentally collapse in on themselves. Rosalie had let her consciousness drift into a dark, safe corner of her mind, detached from the world and the pain of the burns. That was one way that vampires healed themselves. When the mind wasn't so consumed with the pain, it could focus on other things.

Drinking blood was the other obvious way that vampires healed. Carlisle had explained all of that to me as well and his words still flowed through my mind exactly as he had said them. Apparently vampires could remember everything because my mind had never been filled with so many things I wished I could forget. "For all creatures, blood is life," he had said. "But vampires have to borrow that blood from other creatures. We're parasites in that respect. We have to take the blood from other beings in order to survive because we don't really have blood of our own. The blood running through our veins is the blood of the being we drink from. It mixes with the venom and stays in our bodies for quite a while," he had explained. "That's why it's nearly impossible for a vampire to starve. Our bodies conserve the blood," he had said, then paused, thinking for a few minutes before continuing. "When you take blood from another creature and consume it, you take that creature's power into yourself. That's what makes us strong. I always thank the creatures I kill after I've eaten them. Their sacrifice keeps me alive."

So every time I fed now, I said a silent thanks to the creature that had died for me. With Emmett out of the room, I really felt like I was alone and I found that I didn't want to be. I thought about calling out to one of the Cullens camped outside of the door. But before I could, Rosalie stirred and spoke. I hadn't been expecting her to say anything and I actually jumped when her voice drifted over to me. The sudden movement caused some of the skin on my arm to peel back and I grimaced. "Bella?" Rosalie whispered. Her voice was weak and rough, like she had smoked way too many cigarettes.

"Yeah?" I asked, leaning up on my elbows and looking over at her. She was laying on her back, but she had turned her head toward me and I could see her looking at me.

"Where's Emmett?" She asked.

"Outside," I said. "He needed air."

"Oh," she murmured. She was silent for a few minutes and I thought she had gone back into her mental shell when she spoke again. "Tell me something."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"I don't care," she said and shrugged a little, but the action pained her and she moaned lowly in her throat. "Anything," she elaborated. "Tell me something that no one else knows."

I thought for a few moments. Rosalie wasn't just asking me to talk because she wanted to hear my voice; no, she was asking me to trust her, she was asking me to tell her a secret. That secret was like an olive branch between us, something that would solidify our new relationship, our new start. "Okay," I said, breathing out a sigh. "Do you want to hear about how I became a vampire?" I asked. She nodded and I continued. "Stella, Lucy, this girl named Denise, and I had escaped from town and made it to a building called the Utilidor," I explained. "It was the safest building in town, you know, probably for anything other than a vampire attack." I chuckled and so did Rosalie. It was good to hear her laugh.

"Anyway," I continued, "a vampire followed us in and he bit Denise. But he did it by this trash compactor thing. It was a huge machine," I explained. "And it still worked because it was hooked up to a generator. The vampire was biting her and I was watching and I saw her sort of jerk her head toward this button behind me. When I hit the button, the machine rumbled into life, these metal chains pulling things down into the steel teeth that ripped up the trash." I paused, shuddering. Despite the haze that seemed to cover my human memories, I could remember everything that happened right before my transformation very clearly. I felt like I was reliving the whole thing as I told my story to Rosalie and I found myself starting to hyperventilate again. I wasn't sure I would ever get over the fear of those final moments.

"What happened?" Rosalie asked. I thought I heard some commotion outside of the door, but I ignored it. I would find out later that everyone had been listening and Alice had made them all leave so they wouldn't hear what I was saying.

"Denise threw herself into the compactor and dragged the vampire with her," I stated. I tried to distance myself emotionally from the whole thing, viewing the images flashing through my brain like scenes I had watched from a movie. Maybe that way I wouldn't feel like I was breaking down again. But it didn't help. All I wanted to do was curl up into a little ball and squeeze my eyes shut until everything went away. "It dawned on me that we would never get out of there. We were all gonna die. I knew that; I was so convinced of that." I wasn't sure how Rosalie was going to react to this next part. Taking in a ragged breath, I pushed on. "We couldn't run from the vampires and we couldn't hide. That was obvious. The only thing left to do was fight, but no one could fight them all. We weren't strong enough."

"Bella…," Rosalie said, trailing off as I met her gaze. I think she knew what I was going to say before I even said it. Her eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open. I didn't see hostility shining back at me in her eyes like I thought I would. Rather, the only thing I could see was compassion.

"I took a needle out of a first aid kit," I murmured, my voice shaking. "I didn't really know if it would work, but I had to try something. So I filled the needle with the vampire's blood and injected myself with it," I said, feeling oddly lighter now that I had told someone my story.

"God, Bella," Rosalie whispered. "I can't believe you did that."

"Neither can I," I replied, laughing humorlessly. "It was incredibly stupid."

Rosalie shook her head vehemently. "No," she said fiercely, "it was incredibly brave."

Silence fell back between us and I felt, probably for the first time, that I could truly count on Rosalie as a friend. Thinking of Rosalie as a friend led me to think of my other friends, namely Alice. Even though I was angry with her for leaving, I still missed her. A deep longing settled on me and I realized that no matter how angry I was with the Cullens, I would never quite feel whole until I let them back in my life. Of course, that didn't mean I had to make it easy on them. "I think I want to see Alice," I said. Before I could say anything else, the door opened and Alice slipped inside. She stood uncertainly by the door, dancing back and forth on her feet, wringing her hands in front of her. I chuckled a little. No one would ever know how truly terrifying Alice could be just by looking at her. She was such a little pixie - a dangerous, fierce, shopaholic pixie.

"Is this okay?" She asked. "I heard you through the door and I didn't want you to have to get up or anything to get me. Are you feeling okay?"

I nodded, not exactly trusting my voice. Seeing her made all of my old emotional wounds open back up again. I needed to find out what their intentions were. I needed to know if they were going to stick around, if they wanted me to go with them wherever they went, or if I was just some loose end they had been trying to tie up. I already knew what Emmett's intentions were and, wherever Emmett went, so would Rosalie. However, the rest of the Cullens remained a mystery to me and I wasn't going to expend all of my emotional energy forgiving and trying to heal if the rest of them weren't going to stick around long enough for it to matter anyway. Forgiving and healing. They were two things that I knew I had to do, or at least try to do. But I wasn't looking forward to it and I knew it would be a long, painful process. If only Emmett and Rosalie would be with me in the end, I wasn't going to bother.

"Alice?" I asked, patting the space in front of me on the bed. She moved over to it in a flash, settling down with her legs folded underneath of her. I didn't quite know what to make of the distance she put between herself and me. But she was staring at me intensely and all of her muscles were tense, as though was she was ready to spring. It made me a little nervous, so I dropped my eyes. "I need to know something," I said finally.

"Anything," she replied quickly.

"What happens next?" I asked. I mustered all of my courage and sneaked a peek back up at her face. She looked confused.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean," I clarified, "where are you gonna go once I'm healed?"

"Oh," she said. She looked confused again. "Didn't you hear me talking to Edward?" She asked.

I shrugged. "I heard you, but I wasn't really paying attention."

She sighed and shook her head. She grumbled something under her breath that I couldn't quite hear. "You're impossible, do you know that?" She asked.

"Me?" I asked, surprised.

"Most of what I said to him I really did want to say because I've been angry with him for a while," she explained. "But quite a bit of it was for your benefit too."

"That doesn't answer my question," I shot back moodily.

"I'm going wherever you're going," Alice said firmly. "In fact, we're all going wherever you're going. You're in control now, Bella. We've decided that we've dictated things to you for too long and now it's time for you to decide what we all do next."

"You all agreed on that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. I was thinking of Edward specifically when I asked that question, as he had always been the one in control of everything. The idea of him stepping back and letting someone else make a decision was so completely foreign to his character that it actually baffled me into silence.

She smirked a little. "Some were easier to convince than others," she replied evasively. I didn't push. "And don't worry," she added off-handedly. "We've been taking excellent care of your humans."

"My humans?" I asked. Then I remembered. Stella, Eben, Beau, and Lucy. "Fuck," I muttered. "I'd forgotten all about them." Alice looked up at me sharply when I cussed and I shrugged. I deserved to throw a good fuck or shit out there now after all I had been through.

"It's okay," Alice grinned widely. "We haven't. We've been feeding them regularly. I think we freak them out a little, but overall, they've been quite nice about this whole thing."

"Humans are braver than you give them credit for," I said quietly.

"Yeah," Alice dropped her eyes this time. "I know."

I wondered what she was thinking. "Hey," I said, lifting her chin with my finger, "what it is?"

"I know, Bella," she said hesitantly. She must have seen how confused I looked because she elaborated. "I know what you did in the Utilidor," she muttered so quietly that only Rosalie and I could hear.

My mouth fell open a little and I tried to form some kind of coherent sentence, but all that came out was a mumbled, "Huh..what…you…but...I thought…huh?"

"Don't worry," she added quickly, "I heard you launching into the story with Rosalie and I sent the others away so they wouldn't hear. I wasn't sure if you wanted everyone to know that little bit of information yet or not. But I already knew because I had seen a vision of you injecting yourself with the blood."

"What?" Rosalie asked, stirring to life across the room. She sounded angry. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Alice smiled sheepishly. "I didn't tell you guys because I wasn't sure how everyone would react to knowing that we would be too late to stop Bella from becoming a vampire."

Rosalie growled a little and shook her head. "You and your stupid visions," she murmured.

I held back the laugh that was building in my throat and looked back at Alice. "I did what I had to do," I said simply.

"I know," Alice replied. Hesitantly, she reached over as though to grab my hand. Her fingers trembled a little above mine and I realized that she was waiting for me to close the distance.

"I can't just forgive you, Alice," I said, my voice small. Her face fell and she tried to retract her arm, but I quickly grabbed her hand. Her skin didn't really feel as icy to me anymore. It felt normal, still cold, but I was cold too so it didn't really matter. "That doesn't mean I won't, after a while," I explained. "You hurt me," I said, feeling again as though tears should have been springing into my eyes.

"I know," she said. "I wish to God I hadn't. I could sit here and try to tell you how sorry I am all day, but no words could ever truly express it, Bella. Leaving you was the worst decision I ever made."

"I know," I said, smiling a little. I could see how sincere she was. "But it happened, you left, and we have to deal with that. I can't just forget the pain I went through."

"But we can move passed this?" She asked. She sounded so hopeful it broke my heart. Closing my eyes, I sighed.

"Yes," I replied unevenly. "I think we can." I figured out why her muscles had been so tense the moment she launched herself at me and pulled me into what would have been a suffocating embrace. But, as I didn't really need to breathe, and I wasn't so fragile anymore that she could crush me just by hugging me too hard, I actually found myself enjoying the feel of her strong arms circling me, encasing me in a bubble where all of the pain of her leaving seemed to fade away into an indistinct buzzing in the background. When she pulled away, she was absently rubbing her cheeks. For as long as she had been a vampire, she still expected the tears too. "So," I said, trying to lighten the mood a little, "I can barely walk and I haven't showered in a really long time. For old times' sake," I said, remembering when Alice had helped me perform the basic functions of human life after I had broken my leg, "feel like helping me take a shower?" I asked.

She laughed and nodded, gingerly scooping me up and walking me over to the bathroom. "And then what?" She asked.

I sighed again, knowing that she wouldn't be happy with what I was going to say next. "Then I call Charlie."


	18. Conversations

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter 18: Conversations:

_Bella POV_

The shower was an incredibly uncomfortable affair, not just because of the nudity, but also because I couldn't really move all that well and the washcloth felt like razorblades against my skin. Consequently, Alice had to lather me up with her hands. She had the decency to look at the floor most of the time and I had the decency to look extremely apologetic about the whole situation, but that didn't really make it any less awkward. I couldn't make up my mind if it was better that I was completely naked and she was completely dressed or if it would have been better if she was naked too so I didn't feel quite so exposed, but I ultimately decided that having both of us naked in the shower probably would have been even worse. If I had been human, I probably would have had an aneurism from blushing too hard. As it was, I just fidgeted until Alice told me in a much exasperated voice that if I didn't stop moving she would have to get Esme to come in and hold me down. Having Alice hand wash me was bad enough, I really didn't want anyone else involved in the process.

Besides, if I was going to be naked with a vampire in the shower, Alice was so not the one I wanted it to be. As soon as I thought that I felt guilty, angry, aroused, and frustrated all at the same time. Alice looked up at me then, perhaps sensing my muscles tensing underneath of my still fragile skin, and raised a questioning eyebrow. "Let's just be glad he could never hear my thoughts," I mumbled. Alice grinned a little, but didn't say anything else, knowing that I was extremely conflicted about how I felt toward Edward and I'd probably take anything she had to say on the matter the wrong way.

After the shower, I felt much better and I smelled much less like one of the wandering backpackers the Pacific Northwest is so known for. My hair was still dripping wet as Alice carried me back to the bed where I had taken up residence. Now that I wasn't focused so hard on not bolting out of the bathroom in humiliation, I started thinking about the two very difficult conversations that were looming in front of me – one with Charlie and one with the Cullens. Thinking about Charlie just made my stomach knot up until I felt like I was going to vomit up all the blood I had consumed. I had to laugh though; I had never thought that facing the Cullens again would be the least terrifying thing I had to deal with.

Once I was situated on the bed again, dressed in some clothes Alice had bought me for when I was ready to peel off and burn the dirty, blood soaked jeans and shirt I had been wearing, I knew it was time to have at least one of those conversations. I would save Charlie for later. Right now, I had some things to say to the people whom I had once considered my second family, though now I didn't know what to call them. "Alice," I said quietly, "can you get the others in the room, please?"

"Do you want the humans too?" Alice asked sweetly, though I could see her wringing her hands behind her back and I knew she was just as nervous about this as I was. I thought that was odd because I was sure Alice would know how this conversation was going to play out. Maybe she was just uncomfortable knowing the verbal whip lashing I had planned.

"Sure," I said, nodding. I hadn't seen them since we escaped from Barrow and I was staring to miss Eben's overprotectiveness, Stella's wry humor, and Beau's calming presence. I didn't actually know Lucy that well, but I felt like I at least owed her some explanation for why her whole world had been flipped upside down so violently.

Alice moved toward the door but stopped and turned back toward me. "Bella," she started, stopped, and then sighed. "I know you're angry," she tried again, "and I respect that. Believe me, I really do. But…well, can you just…go easy on Esme, okay?" She asked, pleading with me with her eyes. I hadn't really expected her to say that and it startled me, but I nodded.

"I will," I said.

"It's just," Alice explained, "she feels for you like a daughter." I immediately felt myself starting to get angry and Alice rushed together the rest of her words before I could launch into some kind of rant. "You know how she was turned right? And why?" She asked and I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak. "Well, whenever she loses one of her children, even if only for a little while, it reminds her of her baby," Alice trailed off, her eyes turning sad. "When Edward left for Alaska shortly after meeting you, when Jasper and I left after your party, when Edward went to South America, when we had to leave _you_, all of these things caused her to feel the pain of losing a child again and she fell into deep depressions each time."

"Oh," I finally said. It wasn't the most eloquent thing I could have come up with, but I didn't really know what else to say. I had never realized how deeply Esme still carried the pain of losing her child and I had never in my wildest dreams thought she would feel that deeply about me. All of the anger I had been carrying around with me over her leaving seemed to vanish. She had been faced with an awful choice – listen to Edward and leave me behind or refuse Edward and lose him again. In the end, she had lost us both, if only for a little while.

Alice must have seen the light of understanding in my eyes because she moved over to the door and opened it. "Bella would like to speak with us all now," she announced. To my surprise, Eben, Beau, Stella, and Lucy were the first ones in the room.

"Shit, Bella," Beau said. "We've been worried about you. Your guard dogs there wouldn't let us in to see you."

"We weren't certain if it would be safe for you. She _is_ a newborn vampire, after all," Carlisle said defensively as the others filed into the room. Emmett immediately reclaimed his position next to Rosalie, but the others lingered by the door, against the wall, about as far away from me as they could get. That is, everyone except for the four humans, who strode over to my bed and sat down around it like I was still little, clumsy Bella Swan instead of badass vampire Bella Swan. I frowned, having a hard time actually feeling badass when Alice, who was about the size of an overgrown midget and thinner than a willow wisp, had to carry me around everywhere. Stella actually sat down next to me and I had to admire her bravery, especially considering everything she had been through at the hands of vampires.

"Are you kidding?" Stella asked, glaring back at him. "She was trapped in a very tiny room with us after she changed and she didn't try anything. You gotta give her a little more credit than that." Stella looked back at me and winked conspiratorially and I knew she was purposefully leaving out the part where I had slammed her against a wall and almost bit her. She reached over and took my hand, smiling when I squeezed hers back lightly.

"You okay?" Eben asked, studying me with his kind, brown eyes. When he smiled, he looked a little sad.

"I'm okay," I nodded. I looked down at my burns and shrugged. "I don't hurt as much as I did." I knew that he hadn't really been asking about my burns. He felt guilty about what I had done to save us and he was really asking me if I regretted doing it. Eben had been the sheriff of Barrow and I knew he thought he should have been the one to sacrifice himself for the group. "When are you guys gonna take that honeymoon?" I asked, raising one of my eyebrows suggestively.

They both started laughing and I found myself relaxing. "Soon," Stella replied. "We were thinking maybe we'd go someplace sunnier than we had originally planned, you know, like Hawaii or something. There are probably not quite so many vampires in Hawaii," she teased.

"So you guys are okay?" I asked. They all nodded. Lucy was the first one to speak up.

"My sister is coming in in a few hours from San Francisco to take me home with her," she said. "It'll be nice to get out of Alaska," she added quietly. I nodded sympathetically. "In fact," she said, getting to her feet, "I just came in to say good-bye. I want to grab a cab and meet her there."

"Okay," I said, struck by how sad I felt that she was leaving. I didn't really know her, but I had been trapped in an attic with her for twenty some days and I felt like I was losing part of my human life by losing her. She gave me an awkward hug, which was made more awkward for me because I could see Jasper, Alice, Esme, Edward, and Carlisle all tense and move forward as though to rip her away from me if I lost control. She said good-bye to the others, even gracefully giving each of the vampires a handshake before leaving the hotel. When she closed the door, I felt like the Barrow part of my life was officially over.

"Don't worry," Beau said, "they've been feeding us and all that."

"We were more worried about you than anything else," Eben added. "Are you sure you're okay?"

I smiled at him, trying to convey with my eyes everything I couldn't say because of the lump forming in my throat, and settled on, "I'm really okay." He nodded and, when he smiled back at me, it was like I was staring at Charlie.

"You wanted to speak with us," Alice prodded gently.

I took a ragged breath and tore my eyes away from Eben. They landed first on Esme and I motioned for her to sit by me. She came over slowly, like a much abused puppy expecting another kick, and I immediately felt horrible for the things I had said to her. When she sat down, I hesitated for a moment before launching myself into her arms. She hadn't been expecting that and, truthfully, neither had I. I felt her chest heaving against me like she was sobbing and, when she started to stroke my hair, I felt for the first time like perhaps everything would be alright after all. "I'm sorry," I said, my words mumbled into her shirt. "I didn't think about anything I was saying. I shouldn't have ordered you away. I was just so angry."

"I know," Esme replied quietly. Her lips skimmed against my hair and I smelled her sweet breath. It was almost as dazzling as Edward's. A sense of calm washed over me that had nothing to do with Jasper, who, much to my relief, seemed content to let us all feel our own emotions for the present. "You have every right to be angry with me, Bella," Esme continued. "I left you."

"I'm not sure you had much of a choice," I mumbled bitterly, my eyes drifting over to Edward. He locked gazes with me and I had no idea what to make of the emotions tumbling across his face. I saw things there that I wasn't ready to see – hope, sorrow, regret, confusion, lust, despair, and love. I looked away first, realizing just how hard it would be when I had to confront Edward directly, alone.

Esme pulled away and held my face gently with her hands, as though she still expected to be able to break me if she exerted too much force. "If I could go back, I wouldn't have left," she said earnestly. "I would have found some other way, worked harder to keep my family together because, Bella, _you_ are a part of that family. You're my daughter, Bella, and my biggest regret is that I ever made you doubt that."

I really thought vampires were supposed to be strong, but so far my experience as a vampire had been divided neatly between intense physical pain and the constant urge to cry. I must have been the wimpiest vampire _ever _because, here I was, ready to blubber again even though nothing would come out. Instead, I focused my gaze on the bed sheets, willing my throat to stop clenching and my breath to stop coming in short little gasps. Stella started rubbing soothing circles on my back, sensing my complete inability to get a grip on my own emotions. I concentrated on the feel of her hand gliding gingerly over my shirt and that helped to calm me down.

Finally, I looked back up at Esme and smiled. "You really don't know what that means to me," I said emotionally. "Now," I added, "you may want to leave the room unless you feel like getting chewed out."

She smirked and looked over at Beau, Eben, and Stella. "Are any of you hungry?" She asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Beau replied as Eben and Stella both nodded. I found it oddly funny how respectful Beau seemed to be of her.

"I'll go pick something up from the diner down the street," she offered, rising to her feet. She strode gracefully across the room, throwing a sympathetic look at Carlisle and the rest of her family before shutting the door. Alice smiled at me gratefully and I nodded to her.

"First of all," I started, addressing them all, "I don't want anyone to interrupt me. I have some things to say and I would appreciate it if you would speak only when I ask you a question." I saw them all obediently nod, except for Rosalie and Emmett, as we had already come to an understanding, and I had to suppress the urge to smirk. In fact, as I glanced over at Emmett out of the corner of my eye, I noted that he looked rather smug. Rosalie didn't seem to be paying much attention to anything, but her face was turned toward me and I could see a small smile lighting up her features as Emmett traced circles up and down her arm.

"I want to thank you for taking care of Beau, Eben, Stella, and Lucy for me while I was out of it," I said. "I'm sure it's been just as difficult for you to be around them as it has for them to be around you." I paused, collecting my thoughts. I knew from the intense gaze Stella had leveled at my face that she was encouraging me to continue. Stella was the only one whom I had opened up to enough in Barrow to tell the whole story. "When you all left," I began again, "I felt like I had died inside. I don't care about your reasons," I said when both Carlisle and Edward stepped forward with their mouths open as though they were about to speak. "I'm talking now," I said sternly and they both snapped their mouths shut, stepping back against the wall again.

"You all had become a family to me, every single one of you. I really thought that I was part of your family too, but then you just left. Edward was the only one who even bothered to say good-bye," I said, my mind drifting back to that day in the forest. I almost thanked God aloud for the fact that my human memories were so fuzzy I actually had a difficult time remembering how broken I had been. But I had been working on this speech for a long time and, though the pain had been dulled a little by my transformation, I still remembered it enough to feel the sting even now. "I felt betrayed by every single one of you. Well," I added, "not so much Emmett and Rosalie."

Emmett was definitely looking smug now and I thought I heard Edward growl at him, but I wasn't sure. "I've never felt that kind of pain before," I said, shaking my head. I had to look down at my hands now. "It felt like someone had ripped this big, gaping hole in my chest and no matter what I did it never closed up. I was just barely holding myself together all the time. Charlie threatened to send me away; he couldn't stand to see me like that. It was horrible," I added in a whisper. "You had introduced me to this fantasy life, this fantasy family, and nothing could ever compare to it. It was like I had gone from seeing the world in color to seeing it in all black and white."

"Charlie wanted me to come to Barrow thinking I would get over all of you if I got away from Forks for a little while," I said, snorting at how ridiculously disastrous _that_ plan had turned out. "Although," I added, looking back up, "Barrow did actually get my mind off all of you. I was too busy running for my life and being scared out of my freakin' mind to care much about how you all abandoned me." They all shifted uneasily at the word "abandoned" and I felt like screaming it at them a few more times, but I decided that being petulant would only make this harder.

"I spoke to Alice a little while ago," I said. "She told me about your plans for after Rosalie and I are healed, but I want to hear for myself."

"Bella," Carlisle said stiffly, trying to hide the cracking in his voice as he stepped forward again, "I believe I can answer your questions on this topic the best." I really had to stifle the laughter bubbling up in my throat. There they were, four immeasurably strong, terrifying vampires, lined up against the wall staring at me like I was a one woman firing squad. They were all shifting on their feet, staring uncomfortably at each other, at me, at the ground, twitching their hands behind their backs, torn between bolting to escape the emotional intensity of the conversation and staying to accept whatever punishment I decided to dole out for them. I had to admit that I felt bad for Jasper because he was clearly suffering the most from the whirlwind of emotions passing through everyone. But even Carlisle, who was usually so cool and calm, seemed like he was ready to break down.

"Okay," I said.

"We have decided that leaving Forks, and leaving you, was a terrible mistake," he said, speaking for the group. "And we have agreed that we want to try to rectify that mistake in any way you feel necessary. Our hope is that you will allow us to go with you wherever you decide to go so that we can all try to be a family again – together."

I nodded, ignoring yet again the stinging feeling in my eyes of tears that would never fall. "I'm glad to hear you say that, Carlisle," I replied. Hesitantly, I added, "But you're really not the one I want to hear it from."

They all looked confused for a moment before Edward stepped forward. "We," he started, but corrected himself, "_I_ will follow you wherever you go."

We stared at each other for a long time and I knew that he was getting frustrated, not only with my lack of a response, but also with how valiantly I was keeping my emotions out of my face. I _really_ didn't want him to see what he still was able to do to me just by looking at me with that smoldering, black gaze. "Fine," I finally said. "I would be happy to have you all with me," I added, purposefully looking away from him when I said that. "I can't say I've forgiven all of you yet, but I'm working on it. It'll take some time." I couldn't get why Edward seemed so attached to me now. He didn't love me, he didn't want me, and he could just as easily go back to South America if he wanted. I couldn't see pity anywhere on his face so I knew he wasn't sticking around just because he felt bad about what had happened to me. Though I wanted to know why he was so willing to stay with me now that we weren't together anymore, I didn't really feel like getting into that particular conversation with him at that moment with everyone staring at us.

"In Barrow," Jasper said, his voice startling me from my thoughts, "what exactly happened?"

"Vampire attack," I replied, as though that had been the most obvious thing in the world. I really wanted to add a "duh" to the end, but I didn't want to piss him off.

He smiled crookedly, "I know _that_," he shot back good naturedly. "But if you could tell me some specifics, I would appreciate it. Also, what led to your transformation?"

My eyes darkened when he asked that and both Carlisle and Edward involuntarily stepped backward. The fact that I scared them shocked me. Of course, I probably looked pretty scary with glowing red eyes. "I would really rather not get into that now," I said gruffly. Jasper nodded, realizing from the anger and desperation coming off of me that the topic of my transformation was better saved for a later date. "I will tell you this though," I added, "just in case you ever feel like bossing me around now that I'm the youngest. I went through a lot of shit in Barrow, we all did," I said looking around at the now three humans flanking me. "And I'm a whole lot stronger than you think."

Jasper must have felt feelings of disgust coming off of me because he cocked his head to the side and looked at me quizzically. "What are you think about right now?" He asked. "It has something to do with Barrow. One story, please?" He asked. "I haven't heard of such a coordinated attack in a long time. It's very interesting to me." Having Jasper pleading with me was a weird experience and I found myself caving in.

"Okay," I said. "I'll tell you one story. And maybe then you'll get just how bad it was and why I'm not too keen to talk about any of it."

"Okay," he agreed quickly. I made a mental note to ask him later why he was so interested in the attack.

"We were staying in this attic," I said, "hiding while the vampires scoured the town for whoever was still alive." Stella immediately started chuckling. She knew where I was going with this. "Stella and Eben had disappeared downstairs and left the ladder down. So I decided to investigate. We had figured out that a well placed hit on the neck with a fire axe would take a vampire down," I continued and Emmett's eyebrows shot up at that.

"How did you figure that out?" He asked.

Beau answered this time. "She took one out," he said proudly.

The room was deathly silent after that, mostly because the others were worried at how Edward would react to what Beau had said. Edward was clearly fuming, but he didn't say anything. Emmett was gaping at me, clearly trying and failing to come up with a coherent response. Rosalie beat him to it. "Damn girl," she muttered, "never knew you had it in you."

"You killed a vampire when you were a human?" Jasper asked in disbelief.

I shrugged. "It wasn't really that exciting," I replied nonchalantly, secretly pleased with their reaction to that little bit of information. Emmett sputtered and shook his head, his eyes shining with amazement.

"_Shit_, Bella," he finally said. "Shit." He shook his head again. "I just…shit."

"Just wait until I'm healed up enough," I said, teasing him, "now that I'm a vampire, I'll be strong enough to take even you out."

His mouth snapped shut at that and he grinned the widest grin I had ever seen. "Oh, you are so on," he challenged.

"Back to the story," Alice whispered, commanding my attention again.

"Anyway," I continued, "I was halfway down the ladder when I saw a vampire step into view. They hadn't known where we were hiding, but as soon as he saw me, I knew that he knew. He started to leave, to go get the others so they could kill us. Well, I had to do something and, I know it was stupid, but I just launched myself at him." Edward visibly flinched at that, but I tried to ignore him. His eyes were burning into me, clearly he was displeased with how I had chosen to conduct myself in Barrow. "That didn't work out so well, as you can imagine," I chuckled. "He flipped me off his back and I slammed my head into the corner of the wall. I knew he could smell the blood," I said, remembering the hungry look in his eyes, "but he was torn between killing me and leaving me so he could get back to the others and tell them where we were."

"What did you do?" Edward asked, practically groaning. He knew I had done something incredibly reckless and he disapproved of it. It made me pleasantly warm to think that he still seemed to care about my safety.

"Well, I knew I had to keep him there," I said a little defensively. "I saw Eben peeking out at me and he had a clear shot at the axe I dropped in the process of being flicked away like a fly. So I coated my hand with my blood and waved it in front of my face where the vampire would see it, you know, to trick him into staying."

This time Edward definitely growled, as did both Carlisle and Emmett. I think Alice already knew all of this. Rosalie was just staring at me like it was the first time she had ever really seen me. "What did he do?" Rosalie asked in what sounded like awe, but I tried not to get carried away. Rosalie seemed to like me much better now, but she was still Rosalie. She didn't like me _that_ much.

I shuddered a little and even Eben cracked a smile now. "He licked my hand," I replied. "It was probably the most disgusting thing I've ever been subjected to."

"It worked though," Eben added. "I was able to get the axe and cut his head off before he knew what I was doing."

"He _licked_ you?" Emmett asked, his voice rising up a pitch at the same time that Jasper asked, "You actually _let_ him lick you?"

"Uh huh," I said. I saw Edward start pacing and I wondered how much more of this he could take. He really looked like he wanted to hit something and I wasn't entirely sure why he was getting so worked up. After all, it wasn't like he still loved me.

"Gross," Rosalie muttered. "I thought I was tough. Shit, Bella," she said, "I would _never_ let a vampire lick my hand." Emmett looked down at her with a goofy, but slightly hurt, expression on his face and she rolled her eyes. "Except for, you know, Emmett."

"Okay," I said, clapping my hands together, "I think that's enough story time for now. Besides, I want to call Charlie." Carlisle looked like he wanted to argue with me, but I held up one of my hands, essentially silencing him. "I really don't care if you don't think that's a good idea," I said. "I'm calling Charlie and I would like a little privacy."

They all filed out of the room, Stella shooting me a reassuring smile. I let Emmett and Rosalie stay, trying my best to ignore them as I picked up the phone with a shaking hand. I really had no idea what I wanted to say to Charlie. But talking with the Cullens hadn't been as emotionally draining as I had thought it would be and I felt like I had enough left in me to get through a conversation with Charlie too. I tried to think of ways I could start the conversation without completely freaking him out. _Hey, Dad, so you'll never guess what happened up in Barrow. Hey, Dad, sorry I haven't called but I was busy fighting off an angry hoard of vampires. Hey, Dad, bad news is I'm technically dead, good news is I can still come over to watch baseball on the flat screen. Hey, Dad, so Barrow…not such a great idea. Hey, Dad, how would you feel if I started stocking the fridge with animal blood? _

Groaning, I dropped my head in my lap. "It'll be okay," Emmett said softly. "Just call him."

I knew as soon as I said my first word that he would know that something was wrong. My voice sounded different even to my ears and I could only imagine how it would sound to him. Steeling my resolve, I dialed his number, deciding the best way to approach this would be just to start with _Hey Dad_. The phone rang several times before a gruff voice answered, one that I knew right away was not my father's. "Hello?" The man said, sounding both tired and wary.

"Hello," I said back, momentarily confused. "Who is this?"

"Who is this?" The voice shot back.

"I asked you first," I said irritably, apparently now was a good time to be petulant.

"Jacob Black," he answered. I remembered Jacob from the beach, and his father and my father were good friends, but that didn't explain why he had picked up the phone.

There was a long pause in which I expected him to explain to me why he was answering my father's phone and in which he was expecting me to introduce myself. Finally, I said. "This is Bella, Charlie's daughter. Can I talk to him?"

"Oh," he said, the gruffness falling out of his voice entirely. Now he just sounded tired and a little sad. "We've been waiting for you to call."

"We?" I asked. I suddenly had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. "What's going on? Put my father on," I demanded.

"Bella," Jacob said hesitantly, "I need to tell you something and I need for you not to freak out."

"That's such a bad way to introduce an upsetting topic," I replied, exasperated, and a little panicked. "Tell me where he is. Is he okay?"

"He's okay," Jacob said unevenly. "Well, as okay as he's gonna get for now."

"What the hell does that mean?" I growled into the phone.

"Look, Bella," he said, sighing heavily, "Charlie was attacked. He's in the hospital." I didn't say anything for such a long time Jacob started to wonder if he had lost the connection. "Hello?" He asked. "Bella? You there?"

"I'm here," I said quietly. "What happened?"

"We don't know exactly," Jacob replied. "Someone broke into your house," he explained. "But, uh, well, Billy and I and some guys from the rez were coming over to watch the game and we heard him struggling and managed to, um, scare away the attacker." I knew he was lying, but I couldn't quite figure out why, and I had the strangest feeling that Charlie hadn't just been attacked by some random robber.

"And my dad?" I asked, dreading to hear what Jacob had to say next.

"He's stable, but he's in a coma," Jacob replied. "I'm sorry. I really am." I felt like the earth had suddenly dropped out from underneath me. Everything that had happened in Barrow, my transformation, seeing the Cullens again, none of it compared to hearing some guy I really barely knew tell me that my father was in a coma.

"What are you doing at the house?" I asked, trying to think of anything other than the fact that my father was lying in a hospital bed somewhere by himself. I felt the overwhelming need to be with him.

"Like I said," Jacob answered, "Charlie had told us you were gone and he had been expecting a call from you, so we didn't want to miss it and have you come home not realizing what was going on." Something about the way he said "we" bothered me. He was hiding something from me, something important, and I was determined to figure out what it was.

"Listen, Jacob," I said, "I'll be home tomorrow." Emmett sat up ramrod straight in the bed when I said that, looking at me with his mouth set in a grim line.

"Will you need a ride from the airport?" Jacob asked.

"No," I said, gritting my teeth and glaring over at Emmett, daring him to tell me that I shouldn't go back. "I'll be fine."

"Okay," Jacob said. "See you tomorrow. I'll be at the hospital all day."

"Bye," I said, hanging up the phone before he could respond. "Don't even say anything," I warned Emmett. "I'm going back."

"I know," Emmett replied.

"Then why do you look so pissed off?" I asked.

"Because I can't go with you," he replied. "I can't leave Rose here alone and she's in no condition to be moved."

Emmett never ceased to amaze me. My heart swelled with the thought of how much my big brother loved me. I smiled at him. "It's okay," I said. "I can get Alice to go with me." My father had been attacked and I wasn't buying Jacob's story about a robber. Something about the way he had stumbled over his words told me he was lying. I was going back to Forks, no matter what the rest of the Cullens said, and I was going to find out what had really happened.


	19. On the Road Again

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Nineteen: On the Road Again:

"Why didn't you see this?" My anger would have been more impressive if I wasn't clutching at the doorway like it was a life preserver and I was floating around in some violent, dark, turbulent ocean. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew that I shouldn't be angry with Alice; after all, it wasn't like she had attacked my dad and put him into a coma. I had to be angry with someone though and, as the Cullens were still on the top of my list, Alice was the next best target.

"I…I don't know," she stammered, which was not something I had ever heard her do. My legs were starting to give out underneath of me and Beau rushed over, propping me up against his shoulder. Venom pooled in my mouth when I smelled the distinctly human scent of blood, but I closed my eyes, forcibly swallowing the venom down so I could focus on something other than the vein pulsing in his neck.

"What do you mean you don't know?" I questioned, my anger abating somewhat when I saw how truly devastated she looked by the news that Charlie had been robbed and hospitalized. In fact, all of the Cullens looked rather disturbed by this news and, while it should have made me feel better to know that they were just as concerned about Charlie as I was, it actually made me angrier. They had no right to care about what happened to the people they left behind.

"Are there any leads? Any suspects?" Eben asked, interrupted my argument with Alice. I shook my head. We were all standing out on the sidewalk in front of the hotel room now, with the exception of Rosalie, drawing the curious stares of the other patrons. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that we painted a rather bizarre picture, between the group of us coming in and out of the room all night, some of the Cullens remaining outside for hours at a time, and our appearances – Beau looking like a mountain man, Stella and Eben thin as rails, and the rest of us inhumanly beautiful in comparison. I was a little shocked that someone hadn't said something to us, but I wasn't sure what anyone would say. It wasn't like anyone would have figured out what we really were, but since Cullens had always tried so hard to remain inconspicuous I felt like we were breaking some cardinal rule by acting and looking so strangely in the eyes of the rest of the hotel guests. Carlisle kept trying to shoo us back into the room, obviously uncomfortable with the amount of attention we had been garnering, but I was blocking the doorway and I wasn't in the mood to budge.

"You should really sit down, kiddo," Beau suggested in a quiet voice. I did my best to ignore him, but he sounded so concerned that I finally nodded and let him lead me back over to the bed. Carlisle was visibly relieved when we were all back into the room, out of sight. However, now that all eleven of us were crowded into that tiny hotel room, I felt even more uncomfortable than when the family with the station wagon had been visibly gawking at us from across the parking lot or when the two biker guys looked like they were ready to rush over in case a fight broke out between all of us. Jasper was as far away from Stella, Eben, and Beau as he could get without being offensive, Edward was still staring at me like he was trying to will me to hear his thoughts, or at least look at him, Alice was wringing her hands, mumbling apologies, and Carlisle had the most pained and worried look on his face because he knew exactly what I wanted to do and he didn't want to tell me no.

"I couldn't see anything," Alice repeated again. "I still can't. I can't even see him in the hospital. I don't understand." She really did look upset and I sighed, knowing that I should leave her alone instead of pressing her further about things she obviously couldn't see. Jasper moved over to her and started rubbing her back, whispering in her ear as he flashed me a slightly grateful smile when he sensed the change in my mood from angry to resigned. I still needed to have a chat with Jasper, in private, to tell him that I didn't blame him for what happened on my birthday. Every time he looked at me, I could see the guilt and despair in his eyes and I knew that he would never forgive himself for almost biting me, not until I let him feel just how over it I really was.

"It's okay," I mumbled. "Maybe it was a snap decision or something."

"Bella," Carlisle began, but I interrupted him.

"I don't care what you're going to say, Carlisle," I said firmly. "I'm going to Forks, as soon as possible. I don't care if I have to crawl out to the truck and drive myself there."

"I'll drive you," Edward said suddenly.

"What?" I asked, looking over at him.

"I'll drive you," he repeated. Alice snapped her head up at him, staring at him intently for a few moments, before nodding slightly. I had no idea what that meant.

"I don't want you to drive me," I said rather grumpily.

"We won't all fit in one car," Alice interjected.

"What're you talking about?" I asked, exasperated. "You and I are the only ones going."

"No," she shook her head, "Eben, Stella, Beau, Edward, Jasper, you, and I are going."

"Oh for God's sake," I muttered.

"Carlisle needs to stay with Rosalie. She'll be ready to move in a few days. Emmett obviously isn't leaving her and Esme won't leave Carlisle. So the rest of us are going," Alice explained.

"I can help with the investigation," Eben said. "Charlie would want me there."

"And what about you?" I asked, looking over at Beau. "You don't have to feel obligated to come with us."

"I don't," Beau said, smiling a little. "You know, back in Barrow, Eben used to write me all of these tickets for stupid things, broken taillights, shit like that. He said he did it so I would remember that I was part of the community. Well," he said, "I finally feel like I am part of a community, a family maybe, and I ain't leaving. So if you all are going to Forks, so am I."

"And, no offense," Stella stated apologetically, turning to the others, Esme in particular, "but I'm not staying alone in a hotel room with a bunch of vampires."

"Jasper and I will drive the humans," Alice offered. "You and Edward should go ahead of us."

"Will you be okay with that?" I asked, looking over at Jasper.

"He'll be fine," Alice answered for him.

"I want to hear him say it," I shot back moodily. I really needed to get a better grip on my emotions if I was going to be riding in a car with Edward for several hours. The Cullens had never told me about the emotional rollercoaster that naturally came along with being a newborn vampire. The insatiable bloodlust I had been expecting, and I was quite surprised to find that it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe, but the instantaneous shifts between angry, sad, guilty, happy, euphoric, hopeful, depressed, and enraged were driving me insane.

"I'll be fine," Jasper replied softly. I stared at him for a few minutes, getting lost in the pattern of scars all over his arms that I hadn't really noticed before, and then nodded.

"Okay," I said. "Help me to the truck?" I asked, looking over at Beau.

"Sure thing," he replied.

"Bella?" Emmett called as we were shuffling out of the door.

"Yeah?" I asked, looking back at him.

He was standing over Rosalie, holding his fist in one hand like he wanted to hit something. His eyes looked pained and I knew how badly he wanted to come with me, even though he would never leave his mate. "Don't kick anyone's ass until we get there. Just a few days, right Alice?" He asked, looking over at his pint-sized sister as she and Jasper twirled out of the door together, too ethereal to be real.

"Three to be exact," she called back over her shoulder.

"I won't," I promised. "And don't worry, Emmett," I added, "I'm leaving this time. You haven't broken your promise to me yet." The last thing I saw of him was his grinning face as Beau helped me lurch out to the truck that Edward was already sitting in. Esme and Carlisle followed us, telling me to be careful, telling me to feed often, worrying like good parents do. "I'll be okay," I said, briefly hugging Esme as I slid into the car. "Everything's going to be fine."

"We'll be right behind you," Carlisle said, "as soon as we can move Rosalie."

"I know," I replied as Edward started the car.

"I'll take good care of her," he said before stomping on the gas. I rolled my eyes as the truck shot forward through the parking lot. He had said that so often and, as it never really seemed to work out that way, I couldn't believe he had actually said it again. A car was sliding along behind us and I recognized Jasper sitting in the driver's seat, despite the dark tinting on the windows.

The first two hours of the drive we spent in absolute silence. Edward turned the radio on once and, when I promptly turned it back off, he didn't try to turn it on again. I still couldn't listen to music; it didn't matter that Edward was in the seat next to me, I felt like he could have been on another continent. I still had no idea what he was doing here, why he was driving me, or why he seemed intent to stay with the Cullens when they had made it abundantly clear that _they_, at least, weren't leaving me again. Finally, he broke the silence, his voice ringing clearly and beautifully through the car. I actually flinched at the sound of it, not because I was startled at the sudden noise, but because he voice was even more gorgeous than I had remembered. It was like warm honey drizzling over me.

"Bella," he said hesitantly, "I think we need to talk."

I could feel my panic levels already starting to rise and, even though my heart wouldn't beat, I felt like it was exploding out of my chest. "I really don't think we do," I countered.

"I think you're under a misconception," he continued.

"Edward!" I interrupted. "Just shut up." I couldn't talk to him, not now, not ever. Talking to him brought back so many memories I didn't want to have. I closed my eyes when the world around me started to spin out of control, like I was going to pass out, even though I couldn't.

He gritted his teeth, holding the steering wheel in a vise-like grip. "No," he said simply and I knew that the only way to get out of this conversation would be to throw myself out of the truck and pull a tuck and roll on the highway. While human Bella wouldn't have been able to pull off that move, new and improved vampire Bella probably could. That thought entertained me for a few seconds until Edward's phone buzzed. He looked down at it, reading a text message, and smirking over at me when he said, "Alice says not to try it, you'll just rip your burns open and it'll be another week before we can get down to Forks."

"Shit," I mumbled, it suddenly dawning on me that Alice would forever know everything I would ever plan to do. There were no surprises or secrets in the Cullen house. At least Edward couldn't read my mind; I still had a small semblance of privacy, unlike the others.

"What were you planning to do?" He asked, amused.

"Throw myself from the truck," I responded dryly.

"We're moving," he pointed out.

"Yes," I said grittily. "I am aware of that."

"What I said when I left…," Edward started, apparently deciding that jumping right into the conversation would be better than building up to it with some small talk.

"Stop!" I yelled. "I really don't want to hear this. I don't care what you have to say, Edward. I get it, okay? You just came to help. That's fine. I don't expect anything from you."

"That's not what I was going to say," he shot back.

"I don't care!" I yelled again. "How many times do I have to say that?"

"I lied," he blurted out.

I looked over at him in silence for a few moments. "You do realize that I have no idea what you're referring to, right?" I asked.

"That day in the woods, when I told you that I didn't love you, when I told you that I didn't want you, I lied," he explained in a rush.

I was floored, not only because I was shocked to hear him say that he had lied to me, but also because I was having a really difficult time believing him. "Why…what…I don't…why?" I asked, flustered beyond speech. "How could you just…I don't believe you," I finally stated.

Edward looked pained at that and he set his mouth in a grim line. "I'm telling you the truth."

"Well, apparently you're a really good liar, so excuse me if I have a hard time believing you now," I said sarcastically.

"Bella," he replied, his voice so velvety and smooth, I felt like I needed to block my ears to keep him from dazzling me into believing him. "I'm not lying to you now. After your birthday, when Jasper almost attacked you, I realized you're weren't just in danger from things outside of my family, but also from inside of my family. No matter what we did, somehow, you would always be in danger."

"Bullshit," I retorted. "You knew what the _one way_ was to keep me from being that fragile little, girl, but you wouldn't even consider it. You never wanted this life for me, Edward," I said, flashing my red eyes at him. "You never wanted me to be a vampire because you never really wanted me. Not for forever."

"You have no idea how badly I want you," Edward replied, clenching his teeth. "I never stopped thinking about you, Bella. I never stopped loving you."

"I don't want to hear this," I said, pressing myself against the passenger door, as if moving as far as I could away from him would somehow give me the strength to block out the things he was saying.

"I love you, Bella," he practically shouted, his voice filling the entire car. "I lied to you to keep you safe. I left because I knew that, as long as I was with you, you would only ever be in danger and I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because of me."

"Well, guess what, Edward? Something did happen to me. You left and here I am. You couldn't stop me from becoming a vampire, Edward! You couldn't stop me from walking into that massacre in Barrow. Your grand plan, to leave so I would be safe, it totally backfired, Edward. It was the stupidest plan known to man!" I yelled, my voice cracking. I could feel the invisible tears streaming down my face again as my eyes burned. "Fuck!" I yelled, slamming my fist down on the center console. A piece of plastic flew off into the tiny backseat.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. I snuck a glance over at him; he looked like he was in excruciating pain. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."

"I didn't need you to protect me," I shot back. "I took care of myself. I protected _them_," I said, motioning to the humans riding in the car behind us.

"By killing that vampire," Edward stated.

"No," I said, my voice the one dropping lower this time.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"I killed a vampire, yes," I explained. "But that's not how I protected them."

"Then how?" Edward asked.

I looked over at him for a long time, so long he must have thought I wasn't going to respond because he opened his mouth to repeat his question. I shook my head and he closed it again, waiting for me as patiently as he could. I felt incredibly tired all of the sudden, and sad. Everything that had happened to me crashed down on me at once and, now that I was about to tell him about what I had done to myself, I realized exactly what I had lost – my life, my heart, a family, my blushes, my clumsiness, the smell that was uniquely me, the ability to blend in, the ability to eat food, the ability to just be with people without making them uncomfortable. I had lost who I was somehow and I wasn't sure how to get her back.

"I wasn't bitten by a vampire," I whispered.

Edward raised an eyebrow at me. "I don't understand," he replied. "You went through the transformation. You had to have been bitten."

I shook my head slowly this time. "No," I countered. "I wasn't bitten. You have to understand," I said, pleading with him with my eyes, "they were going to kill us all. I couldn't let them kill them – Stella, Eben, and Beau. They're family to me now. There was only this one way." I looked out of the window now, unable to look at his face.

"What happened?" He asked, his voice so controlled I knew if I looked back over at him he would be a few seconds away from breaking the steering wheel.

"I took a needle and I injected myself with vampire venom," I said. "I did this to myself." He didn't say anything for the longest time. "Edward?" I asked, looking over at him. His face looked so blank, he was so lost, I had no idea what to do. "Edward?" I asked again, reaching out tentatively and taking his hand.

"It shouldn't have been this way," he murmured. "It should have been me."

"What?" I asked, my eyes widening in shock as I looked over at him.

He sighed heavily, wrapping his fingers around my hand and squeezing it so tightly it would have broken had I been human. "You shouldn't have had to do this. You shouldn't have gone through this alone. Bella," he said, looking over at me with such intense eyes I felt like looking away, but I couldn't. I was transfixed by him. "It should have been me. You should have felt loved and wanted and you should have known the moment it was happening that you would have your family all around you when you woke up."

"Edward…," I trailed off, my throat closing on me as the tears that wouldn't fall choked all of the words from my lips.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You really hurt me," I replied.

"I know," he admitted.

"I can't just trust you again, not right away. The pain, it won't go away just because you say you love me now," I argued. "What if you change your mind again? What if you want another distraction?"

"I'll never want anything or anyone but you," he swore.

I shook my head. The words sounded too good to be true and, though I desperately wanted to believe them, I just couldn't forget how easily he had left me before and how terribly I had handled the whole situation. "I can't just pretend it never happened."

"I'm not asking you to," he said. "I'm just asking you to give me a second chance to prove to you that I mean what I'm saying now. I'm not going to leave you, Bella. I'm never going to leave you again."

There was sincerity in his words, but I couldn't trust it, not yet. Instead, I just shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. "I won't survive it," I finally responded, "if you leave again. I won't survive it."

"Bella, please," he pleaded.

Slowly, I disentangled my hand from his. I missed his touch as soon as it was gone, the electric current that seemed to sizzle between us cooling to nothing as my hand was once again in my lap, instead of encircled in his. "You can't ask me this, not right now," I said.

"Do you still love me?" He asked, his voice breaking this time. He swerved the car over to the side of the road, the tires squealing angrily and throwing up a cloud of dust and gravel. Stomping the brakes, he put the car in park and turned to face me. Grabbing my face with his hands, he made me look at him. I could only imagine what Alice and the others in the car behind us were thinking. "Do you still love me?" He asked again, more forcefully this time.

I couldn't say anything for the longest time. Hot, burning tears were clogging my throat, since they were unable to escape from my eyes. Every time I tried to speak, my voice came out a whimper. He didn't wait any longer for me to respond. Instead, he crashed his lips into mine, kissing me with all of the passion and force I had wanted him to kiss me with for so long. My body betrayed me and I found my lips moving with his. I couldn't stop the moan that escaped from my lips when he tongue traced my bottom lip, begging for entrance into my mouth. The feel of his tongue sliding across mine, dueling for control, was unlike anything I had ever felt. Instinctively, I pressed closer to him, reveling in the feel of his hard chest pressing into my body, as I dug my hands into his hair, scraping my nails into his scalp, pulling him closer. I wanted more of him, I needed more of him, but something in the back of my mind was yelling at me to stop. I wasn't ready for this, not yet.

I pulled away, not saying anything as I opened the car door and stumbled out to the side of the road. I had no idea how I actually managed to keep myself upright and moving, but I made it to the other car and yanked the passenger door open. "Jasper," I said, my voice rough, still laced with desire, but also pain. "Go ride with Edward."

He didn't argue with me. Instead, he got out of the car and into the truck as Alice slid into the driver's seat. He probably felt the emotions coming off of me and wanted nothing to do with them, but he wasn't going to fair much better with Edward. I managed to throw myself into the car and close the door before I started trembling all over. Burying my face in my hands, I let the dry sobs tear through me. I heard Alice and Stella whispering to me, each woman rubbing circles on my back as I wailed mutedly into my hands. "It's okay," I heard Stella saying. "Everything will be okay," Alice was saying. But I couldn't listen to either of them. The only thing I could hear was Edward asking me if I loved him and the only thing I could feel was his lips moving so smoothly against mine, awakening in me feelings I hadn't had in so long, feelings that ripped anew the hole in my midsection that had slowly started to mend itself back together. It hurt so badly, it hurt because he loved me, it hurt because he wanted me, it hurt because I still loved him, even though I hadn't said it, and it hurt because no matter how much I wanted to let him back in, I just couldn't.


	20. Return to Forks

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Notes:

Thanks again everyone for the reviews. You guys rock. Also, sorry for the delay in updating, but this chapter was giving me some issues.

Chapter Twenty: Return to Forks:

_Edward POV_

When Jasper got into the car, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, all of the air left my lungs in a whoosh that deflated not only my ego, but my heart and soul as well. Bella didn't want to ride with me, she had sent Jasper to take her place. She must have known how much it would hurt me to see Jasper coming back to the car instead of her. In the span of a few minutes, I had wrecked everything, somehow, even though for a few seconds I had felt as though maybe she still cared for me. I must have been wrong, I had to have been wrong, but still, she never had answered me last question. _Do you still love me?_ She hadn't said no, although she hadn't said yes either. When I left her all of those months ago, I hadn't thought she would give up on living, I hadn't thought she would become the zombie I had seen in the minds of Eben and Stella and they were only second hand observers. I shuddered to think of what I would see when I looked into the minds of the people back in Forks, people who had seen everything first hand, who had witnessed just how badly I had hurt her. I didn't know if I could survive seeing it and, even now, I knew I would never forgive myself for what I had done to her. The pain would stay with me forever, even if she did forgive me one day, even if she came to love me again, I would never be able to look at her without seeing how much I had broken her.

I crumpled into myself, clutching at the steering wheel, the only thing that seemed to ground me in reality. I should have known that her pain would mirror my own, that the gaping hole I felt in my chest she would feel in hers as well. We were mates, we couldn't live without each other, but I was starting to think I had realized that too late. Jasper closed the car door and suddenly the truck felt incredibly small. We were stuck together in that cramped, vacuum sealed cab, my emotions driving both of us insane. Jasper fidgeted in his seat, shooting me looks out of the corner of his eye, obviously waiting for me to start speaking. "Okay," he said after a few minutes of silence. "Want to tell me what happened?"

"No," I grumbled. The car that Bella was now in shot forward, leaving us behind and I stomped on the gas to catch up. I wasn't letting Bella out of my sight now that I had found her again, no matter how angry she was with me.

"It's a long drive, Edward," Jasper pointed out exasperatedly. "I'm seriously thinking about a tuck and roll here. You've got to calm down or let me out."

"I kissed her," I blurted out, groaning when Jasper chuckled.

"Probably not the smartest thing you could have done," he noted.

"We were having this really intense conversation," I argued. "I told her that I loved her. It felt like the right time, for me anyway. She obviously felt differently about it."

Jasper sighed. "Edward," he started hesitantly, picking through the words carefully in his mind. I tried to block his thoughts, to allow him some privacy to arrange what he wanted to say without having to worry about me hearing something that he didn't want me to. "She's in a very unstable place emotionally right now. I'm not sure that she's ready to rekindle her relationship with you just yet."

"I got that when she ran out of the car," I replied dryly. I couldn't shake the look of fear that had been in her eyes when she bolted. Still, I couldn't forget that she had responded to me, for a few blissful seconds, she had thrown everything into that kiss and it had been amazing.

"When you told her that you loved her, what did she say?" He asked curiously.

"She told me she wouldn't be able to survive if I left again," I replied, that hole in my chest widening as I thought of her words, of the pain in her eyes when she said them, pain that I had caused. "She doesn't trust me, Jasper. She believed everything I said to her when I left and now she doesn't trust that I'm telling her the truth."

"What _did_ you say to her when we left?" Jasper asked quietly. "No one ever told me."

"That's because I never told anyone else," I said, sighing as I ran a hand through my messy hair. I wasn't really paying attention to the road anymore; I didn't have to, I could have driven perfectly with a blindfold over my eyes. However, just because I wasn't watching the road didn't mean that I wasn't watching the taillights of the vehicle in front of us, the vehicle in which Bella was sitting right now saying God only knew what to Alice. "I told her that I didn't want her anymore. I told her that I didn't love her. I told her I was easily distracted." I snuck a look at Jasper and saw him glaring at me with such malice in his eyes that I actually felt afraid of him.

"You said _what?_" He yelled. I wasn't expecting that and I jerked the steering wheel to the left, causing the truck to swerve. Even through the tinted windows of the vehicle in front of us, I could see five heads turn to stare back at us. I knew Alice had to be smirking up there, but I didn't care, all I wanted was one more glimpse of Bella's face to help me figure out what she was feeling, but the windows were too dark.

"Shit, Jasper," I yelled back. "Give me some warning next time."

"Fine," Jasper said, fuming, "here's your warning." He shook his head, opening his mouth a few times to say something, but evidently thinking better of it. Finally, he spoke. "I can't believe you would say that to her, Edward. She's your mate. You never say something like that to your mate, you never hurt her like that. I don't care that you were lying because you wanted to protect her, you never say something like that. It's blasphemous. Love is all we have, Edward." Jasper looked over at me, his eyes shining, and I knew he was thinking of Alice.

"I know," I replied gently. "I realize that now. I know I've made mistakes, Jasper. I just hope I'm not too late to fix them."

"You're going to have to do quite a bit of fixing," Jasper mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'll do whatever it takes to get her back, Jazz," I said resolutely. "She's my life."

"Edward," Jasper said, smiling crookedly over at me, "I wasn't going to tell you this, but I think you should hear it. When she stormed out of the truck and came back to ride with Alice, I felt a myriad of emotions coming off of her. Most of them resided in the anger family, but there was love there too. She loves you. She may not know it right now, or be willing to admit it, but she does and she'll figure that out eventually. You just need to give her time."

I nodded, relaxing my grip on the steering wheel. I knew that Jasper wouldn't lie to me; Bella really did love me, even if she hated me too. We rode in silence for another couple of hours, Jasper seemed more tranquil now that my emotions had evened out. I wished that I could read Bella's mind, I wished that I knew what was going on in the vehicle in front of us. My thoughts drifted back to my earlier conversation with Bella in which she had revealed the details of her transformation. It made me sick to think that she had been forced to inject herself with venom. I had never approved of the idea of turning her into a vampire, not because I didn't love her enough or because I didn't want to spend eternity with her, but because I didn't want to damn her soul. I didn't know what God thought of vampires. Carlisle believed that we were still God's creatures, even though we had to kill people to survive, but I couldn't believe that, not like he did. Bella made me see the good in my family, the good even in myself, but I couldn't honestly say that I thought God would welcome me with open arms if I ever did stop existing.

At the same time, I didn't believe that Esme or Alice were damned to hell. I didn't believe that God would reject Carlisle, Emmett, or Jasper either. Perhaps I wasn't really a monster, but I felt like it, and I never had been able to accept the risk that Bella might come to think of herself as one too. However, I had always believed that, if she had to become a vampire, I would be the one to change her. It wouldn't have been like Emmett or Rosalie, the transformation following a moment of excruciating pain and fear, or like Esme, the transformation following unbearable sadness. The moment would have been perfect, a moment that, even through the fuzzy lens of human memories, Bella would have remembered forever. It would have been romantic, she would have known how much I loved and wanted her, and when she had opened her eyes to her new life, she would have been surrounded by her family. Instead, she had opened her new eyes in a dank room in a building that pounded trash into little cubes, surrounded by blood, death, and fear.

A deep sense of mourning washed over me. I couldn't help but grieve for the innocence that Bella had lost in the experience of having to take her own life. There was no other way of thinking about it; Bella had killed herself. She had done it for noble ends, to save those she loved, but she had still killed herself. I just hoped that her last moments were spent thinking about happier times, that she hadn't been in pain when she died, that she had been able to let go of the depression and anxiety and fear for a few precious moments. I wanted to cry, even though I couldn't, so instead I stared blankly out at the blur of scenery passing by us, wondering how everything had gotten so off course.

"It's okay, Edward," Jasper said, breaking the silence. "I don't know what you're thinking about, but I can feel it. You've got to try to think about something happier."

"I can't," I replied mournfully.

"Talk to me then, brother," Jasper offered. "Don't just wallow in it."

"Bella told me about how she made the transformation," I explained softly. I didn't know if Bella wanted Jasper to know or not, but I felt like I needed to talk about it.

Jasper stiffened in his seat, folding his hands tightly in his lap. I knew that this was something that would be difficult for both him and Emmett to hear about because Bella was their little sister. They loved her as much as I did, just in a different way. "What happened?" He asked, setting his jaw. I peeked into his mind and saw how guilty he felt about everything that had happened since the night of her birthday party. He blamed himself for all of it, for us leaving, for Barrow, and for Bella becoming a vampire.

"Jazz," I said, wishing at that moment that I had his ability instead of my own, "none of this is your fault."

"This isn't about me," Jasper replied darkly.

"I can see how guilty you are," I insisted.

"Edward!" He snapped. "I don't want to talk about that. I can't forgive myself for what happened and Bella shouldn't forgive me either. Now tell me what happened."

I nodded, knowing that now wasn't the right time to push him. "Bella told me that she wasn't bitten," I explained.

"What do you mean?" He asked, looking over at me, curiosity shining in his eyes now, instead of self-loathing.

"She injected herself with venom," I explained. I felt my heart tighten when I thought about it. "She did it to save the others, the humans."

"My God," Jasper said, leaning forward in his seat, clutching at his stomach.

"You okay?" I asked, laying a reassuring hand on his back.

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," he mumbled, resting his head on his forearm.

"I know what you mean," I whispered. I felt like screaming, I felt like hitting the steering wheel until it was just dust in my hands, I felt like doing anything but sitting there trying to console Jasper. He may have thought that everything that had happened to Bella was his fault, but I _knew_ that it was mine. If I had just stayed, if I had stopped thinking that I knew what was best for everyone, if I had let Bella have some control every once in a while instead of trying to take it for myself, everything would have turned out differently. Yet, despite the guilt I felt for leaving her, the hatred I felt toward myself for what that leaving made her do, what it made her feel, I was also proud of her. She was the bravest person I knew, someone who would willingly sacrifice herself, her own life, for the sake of others. I wasn't such a selfless creature, I didn't know anyone else who was.

Jasper leaned back against the passenger seat, breathing slowly in and out. He was trying to calm himself down, but he wasn't doing very well because I could feel the nausea and anger coming off of him as though he was projecting it onto me. This time, I was the one who admonished him. "Jasper," I said, "calm down. It's okay. You're making _me_ want to jump from the car now." I said it, but I knew the words rang false. Nothing about this situation was okay, nothing about what Bella had been forced to do to herself was okay. If I had only been there, it wouldn't have happened.

"We can never make this up to her," Jasper muttered. "None of us."

"We have to try," I said determinedly. "We have to show her how much we love her, all of us. We have to be her family again." I sighed, we had to be her family, even if it wasn't enough anymore.

The sun was rising over the trees when we finally rolled into Forks. We had ridden the rest of the way in silence, neither Jasper nor I willing to talk about anything else. The car had been stifling with all of the emotions passing back and forth between us, both of us feeding on each other's negativity. By the time we had pulled up in front of the hospital, I was ready to leap from the car just to be away from Jasper for a few minutes and I knew that he felt the same way. However, just as I put the car in park and reached for the door handle, my eyes fell on a group of men standing in the hospital entrance, staring at us, their eyes dark with hatred and suspicion.

"Shit," Jasper said, his eyes locking on them as well.

"Wolves," I muttered, disgust tainting my words. I could smell them from inside of the car and it made my skin crawl.

"Edward," he said, looking over at me, his eyes wide with something that looked like fear. "They're going to kill us."

"What're you talking about?" I asked. "We'll be fine. The treaty is in place. I know we're not used to being this close to them, especially not a group of them, but we all just have to be civilized."

"No!" Jasper shouted at me. "Don't you understand?"

"Understand what?" I shot back, my voice betraying my irritation.

"They're going to take one look at Bella's eyes and assume we've broken the treaty," Jasper said, his eyes hardening, his mind whirling with a thousand different strategies for escape, a thousand different scenarios for if we had to fight.

I actually gulped, the weight of his words slamming into my chest. Neither Alice nor Bella had exited the car parked next to us yet, but I didn't know if they were thinking the same thing as we were or if Bella was just having a difficult time now that she was here, only steps away from seeing Charlie broken, lying in a hospital bed in a coma. Part of me wanted to rush over and comfort her, to pull her into my arms and tell her that everything would be okay, but I knew that doing so would only drive her further away from me at this point. I needed to wait for her to come back to me and I would wait, forever, but we had far more pressing things to worry about now. Closing my eyes, I shook my head, the words spilling from my mouth before I could stop them. "We never should have come back here."


	21. Confrontations

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Twenty-One: Confrontation:

_Bella POV_

The ride to the hospital was spent mostly in silence, even though I knew that Alice was itching to ask me questions about what had happened in the car between Edward and I. She was fidgeting in the seat next to me, shooting me glances every few seconds, biting her lip, wringing her hands as she clutched the steering wheel. Every once in a while, she would open her mouth to speak, but then she would decide better of saying anything, perhaps seeing that I would react badly. Stella, Eben, and Beau apparently had collectively decided not to broach the subject of the switch between Jasper and I either because they were all sitting in the back looking everywhere but at me, determined not to say a word. I didn't know if I appreciated the silence or not. I didn't really want to talk about what had happened, or why I had flipped out and stormed out of the car, or what Edward had said prior to my abandoning him to ride with Alice, but I didn't really want to sit in silence to stew with my own thoughts either. Finally, I decided to say something, if for nothing more than to get the conversation out of the way so I wouldn't have to deal with it later.

"Okay, Alice," I said, propping my elbow up on the window and leaning my head against my hand. "Ask away."

"What happened?" She immediately replied. "We couldn't see much of what was going on, but it looked pretty heated and I saw him kiss you when you guys stopped. Why did you run? What did he say?"

"Geez," Beau muttered from the back. "If I knew this was going to devolve into girl talk I would have hopped out with Jasper."

Eben snickered and Stella smacked him on the arm, taking a moment to shoot Beau a glare in the process. "Knock it off," she said. "Bella's been through a lot." Beau sighed, a bit dramatically, and Eben started rubbing his arm, muttering something about Stella and Wheaties. "Go on, Bella," she encouraged.

"He kissed me," I confirmed, reluctant to talk about it now that I had brought the subject up. I just didn't know what to feel when it came to Edward. He was inevitable, _we_ were inevitable, but I couldn't just forgive him and forget that he had ever hurt me. I couldn't be weak, little Bella Swan who followed Edward around like he was the planet upon whose gravitational pull I depended. I was my own person, a very strong person, who had been through some horrible experiences and survived. I didn't want to be different, being different had been thrust upon me back in Barrow, but I was and I could never go back.

"And?" Alice prodded impatiently.

"I kissed him back," I replied. I was looking out of the window, watching the scenery flash by as Alice drove way too fast. I knew that Edward was in the car behind us, I could feel him staring at the back of my head, and I wanted to turn around to catch a glimpse of him, if only to prove that he was still there, but I made myself stay rooted in place.

"That's a good thing, right?" Stella asked.

"Let me get this straight," Beau interjected. "This Edward guy left you, from what I understand, a complete mess. Then he comes back, swearing up and down that he wants you back. He kisses you and you, the girl who beheaded a vampire right in front of me, the girl who tackled a vampire and let him lick your hand to distract him, the girl who…well," he paused, tugging at his unruly beard, "injected herself with vampire venom to save us all, just kissed him back like nothing had happened?" He asked incredulously. "I'm sorry, but that's just not something that badass Bella would do."

"I thought you weren't into girl talk," Eben said, humor dancing in his eyes.

"Shut up," Beau shot back.

"I didn't just kiss him like nothing had happened," I said defensively. "Obviously, I was uncomfortable with the situation."

"So you fled," Beau retorted.

"I didn't flee," I said indignantly.

"Well," Alice started, but I interrupted.

"I chose to remove myself from the situation," I clarified.

"But it was a good kiss though, right?" Stella asked. "I mean, it looked like a good kiss from back here."

I thought for a moment, my mind replaying every single miniscule detail of the kiss I had shared with Edward, our first kiss since I had become a vampire. My vampire memory was so much better than my human memory had been. I could remember how smooth his lips were sliding across mine, how sweet his breath tasted, how hard his body had felt pressed against mine, but what I remembered most was the way my body reacted. Everywhere he had touched left fire in its wake, my skin tingled, but hands, fisted in his hair, wanted to be everywhere at once, and I had felt as though something was coiling up in my stomach, desperate for release, desperate for anything, for more, for all of him. It was almost as though I could feel him kissing me again as I replayed it in my memory. "Yeah," I replied absently, still immersed in my thoughts, "it was a good kiss."

"You should have punched him," Beau snorted.

"Not a believer in true love, huh, Beau?" Eben asked.

"Your true love shouldn't break your heart," Beau shot back.

"So if it was a good kiss, why did you decide to ride with us?" Alice asked.

"Because your true love shouldn't break your heart," I answered sadly, borrowing Beau's words. "I want to love him again, I really do, but I can't trust him, not yet. He tells me he loves me, he tells me he wants me, but I can't help thinking he's lying again."

"What do you mean _again_?" Alice asked.

"You didn't see?" I questioned, looking over at her. She was staring at me, not even bothering to look at the road anymore, not that she needed to.

"No," she replied. "He didn't make up his mind what to say to you until he got to your house that day. I guess when he started, he had a plan, but it wasn't working, so he thought of something else. I just knew that he was going to leave, but I didn't know how he was going to accomplish it."

"He said he didn't love me anymore," I answered dully, not wanting to relive this pain again, even though saying the words made me feel like I couldn't breathe. "He said he didn't want me."

Alice inhaled in a low hiss and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "I'm gonna kill his sparkly ass," she muttered.

"Not before I get my piece, sister," Beau said, cracking his knuckles.

"Okay," I said, throwing up my hands, "as much as I appreciate the support, no one needs to inflict any bodily harm to Edward. This is something that he and I will have to work through."

"So you do plan to work through it?" Eben asked, now just as sucked into the girl talk as Beau was.

I sighed, running a hand through my now perfect, shiny hair. "Yes," I replied after what must have seemed like forever to Alice because she started fidgeting again. "I want to work through it with him. I'm not saying it'll be easy, or that it'll happen any time soon," I added, looking over at Alice as I spoke. She was already starting to grin, despite my words. "Just that I want to make this work with him, even though he hurt me, because I just can't help but love him. It's like I'm compelled to."

Stella reached up, gently rubbing my shoulder. "I think you're making a good decision," she said. "He looks at you with so much love in his eyes."

"Just like I look at you, right?" Eben said, smiling as he slung his arm around her shoulder and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Oh, make me gag," Beau grumbled.

Stella laughed. "That's right," she said, leaning into his embrace. I watched them in the rearview mirror and smiled.

We rode in silence as we passed into Forks. As we neared the hospital, I saw the laughter slowly start to drain from Eben's face when he thought about seeing his uncle lying in a hospital bed. The thought of Charlie hooked up to machines, helpless, dependent on nurses to bathe him, being fed through a tube, was almost more than I could take. Charlie had always been so strong, my father, invincible, someone I could always count on to handle anything. Now that we were pulling into the hospital parking lot, I didn't know if I would actually be able to go in, I didn't know if I could stand to see him like that. I felt that familiar burning in my eyes, the tears that wanted to fall but couldn't. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed Alice blinking her eyes rapidly, trying to fight the same thing I was. She loved Charlie too.

"Can you see anything?" I asked her lowly when we parked in front of the hospital. Edward and Jasper pulled up next to us.

Alice closed her eyes for a second, but growled in frustration. "No," she said finally. "I can't see anything."

"Is that normal?" I asked, concern staining my voice.

"I don't know," she said, troubled. "I mean, I can't even see him now."

"What does that mean?" I asked, gritting my teeth, panic rising up in my chest. "He's still alive, right? You would have seen it if he died?"

"I don't know," Alice exploded. I realized then that she was blaming herself for not seeing Charlie get attacked in the first place. The fact that she couldn't see him now was only adding to the guilt she felt. "I can't see anything."

"It's okay," I said, reaching over and taking her hand.

She sighed, looking out of the window toward the hospital entrance. I felt her stiffen, her fingers gripping more tightly around my hand, when her eyes fell on a group of men standing by the entrance. "Oh shit," she muttered.

"What?" Eben asked, leaning forward in his seat, trying to see what she was seeing.

"Werewolves," she stated, her mouth a tight line. "Those men standing in front of the hospital are werewolves."

"Werewolves?" Beau asked. "Is she kidding?"

"I don't know," I replied, looking over at her expectantly. "Are you kidding?"

"No one ever told you this?" She asked in surprise.

"Told me what?" I asked, irritation flooding my voice. I hated how many secrets the Cullens had kept from me, all for the sake of keeping me "safe."

"The Quileutes…they're werewolves," Alice explained. "Carlisle made a treaty with them long before Jasper and I joined the family. Basically, we promised not to attack or bite any human and, as long as we stayed off of Quileute lands, they wouldn't kill us."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Stella said.

"Werewolves are real?" I asked.

"Yes," Alice confirmed. "It's not any weirder than vampires," she added when she saw me staring at her wide eyed.

"Huh," Eben said, leaning back in his seat again.

"What?" Beau asked, looking over at him.

"So this treaty you guys made," he thought aloud, "it says you can't bite anyone, right?"

"Right," Alice stated.

"So when we get out of this car and they see that Bella is a vampire now, what's the first thing they're gonna assume?" He asked.

"Oh shit," I muttered.

"But they didn't bite her," Stella argued.

"I'm not sure that'll matter," Alice replied.

"Why not?" I asked.

"They don't like us," Alice explained. "It's like it's in their genetic makeup to hate us. The feeling is pretty much mutual. We don't like them either. So no matter how many times we explain that we had nothing to do with your being changed, they're going to see that bite mark on your hand and your red eyes and they'll believe what they want to believe because it will give them an excuse to get rid of us once and for all."

"They can't honestly think they can fight you guys," Beau stated incredulously. "I mean, you guys are tough, really tough."

"So are werewolves," Alice said, shrugging. "Besides, they won't let you in the hospital," she said, looking over at me. "Not if they think you're going to hurt someone."

The idea of a bunch of strangers denying me access to my own father sparked something in me, a flash of anger that had me opening the car door and storming up to the entrance before Alice or the others could stop me. It didn't matter to me that my eyes were glowing red in the early morning light, that little rays of sunshine were escaping from between the clouds, lighting my skin up like millions of diamonds, I was going to see my father, even if I had to kill every werewolf in Forks to get to him. It was an irrational reaction, a violent reaction, something that I knew in my heart was the product of my unstable, newborn emotions, but I couldn't make myself stop, even when the men standing by the doors stiffened, smelling vampire on the air, as I approached.

One of them knew who I was and he stepped forward, eyeing me with suspicion, sadness, and anger. I stopped when I was only about ten feet away from them, not because my resolve had wavered, but because I saw for the first time that they weren't really men; no, they were boys, boys probably a few years younger than I was, even though they were built like wrestlers. "I'm here to see my father," I said, my voice acidic, challenging them to deny me.

"Bella Swan?" The one who had stepped forward asked. I nodded tersely. "I'm Sam," he continued, his hands held in front of him in both a defensive and placating position.

"I'm here to see my father," I repeated.

"We can't let you do that," he said softly, but firmly.

I heard car doors opening and shutting behind me. Without having to turn around to look, I knew that Jasper, Edward, and Alice had formed a semi-circle behind me. The boys behind Sam, four of them in total, did the same, all of them tensing, ready to spring. I had the feeling that it wouldn't take much to set them off, but I also knew that it wouldn't take much to set me off either. The treaty didn't mean much to me, I didn't care what arraignment Carlisle had made with the Quileutes. I hadn't come all this way for some stranger to tell me that I couldn't see my own father. I was about to step forward, to challenge Sam to tell me to my face again that _he_ was going to stop me from entering the hospital, when Stella pushed through the line of vampires behind me to stand right next to me.

"Hey," she yelled, capturing everyone's attention. "I don't fully understand what's going on here, but you guys have no right to tell her that she can't see Charlie," she said, pointing at the Quileute boys. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but she continued on, not allowing him a chance to speak. "Yeah, she's a vampire. Get over it. Look," she said, moving even closer to me, so close I could smell the blood rushing through her veins, hear the vein in her neck throbbing. It didn't bother me, I just swallowed down the venom, knowing that I would never bite Stella, even if she was gushing blood right next to me. "You're worried about her attacking someone inside? She's not attacking me," she stated. "She's been stuck in a car with me for several hours and not just me, two others, and she hasn't tried to eat us."

"She's a newborn," Sam spat out. "She can't be trusted. None of them can be trusted. You broke the treaty," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, and looking at the Cullens lined up behind me.

"No one broke the treaty," I countered, growling lowly in the back of my throat.

"You're a vampire," he stated. "Someone bit you and I'd bet my life it was _him_," he added, pointing to Edward.

"I did this to myself," I shot back. "Yeah, you heard me right," I added when I saw him bristle and look at me in confusion. "I chose this. I did this. Now, I'm going in there to see my father and you'll either step aside and let me, or I'll tear all of you apart right here. I don't care who sees."

Several moments passed, during which I contemplated the likelihood that I could fight all of them without losing a limb or worse, when Sam finally spoke. "Where's Carlisle?" He asked.

"He's coming," Jasper answered.

"When he arrives, I want to speak with him," Sam said firmly. "For now, the treaty stands, but if we discover that you really have broken it, none of you will ever step foot in Forks again," he threatened.

"Can I go in now?" I asked impatiently.

He stepped back, nodding. "We'll be watching," he said. "The second one of us thinks you're losing control, we'll take you out. I don't care who sees," he said, throwing my words back at me and I flinched, knowing that Sam would kill me right in front of my father if he had to.

"Fine," I muttered. Relief coursed through me as I started toward the hospital door, but Edward grabbed my arm, effectively stopping me as the others moved ahead. "What?" I asked, glaring over at him.

He just smiled at me, holding up a pair of dark sunglasses. "Unless you want everyone to see your eyes…," he trailed off and I smiled back sheepishly, taking the sunglasses.

"Right," I said, "sorry." I slid them on my face and walked into the building, cool air hitting me as I strode through the automatic doors. Eben had already asked what room Charlie was in and I found myself following him yet again as we made our way through the halls of the hospital. When we reached his room, the others stepped back, knowing that I would want to go in first. Even Edward stepped back, assuming that I wanted to do this alone. However, now that I was standing in front of Charlie's door, the thought of having to walk in that room alone terrified me. I was a vampire, but I was still his little girl. Reaching back, I clutched at Edward's hand desperately. "I can't do this alone," I whispered, looking up at him with pleading eyes. He nodded, entwining his fingers with my own.

"Okay," he said. "I'm right here." I could hear the heart monitor from out in the hallway; I could even hear the dripping of the IV fluids. I wanted so badly to cry, to sob, to lose control of myself and collapse into a puddle of grief on the hospital floor, but I knew I had to stay strong for Charlie. Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I walked into the room.


	22. Charlie

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Twenty-Two: Charlie:

_Bella POV_

I probably should have noticed the wet, thumping heartbeats and the musty, earthy smell of wolf coming from my dad's bedside while we were all standing around out in the hallway, but I had been so petrified of the thought of seeing my father lying in a hospital gown, hooked up to a thousand different machines, weak and unconscious, that I didn't even realize that Renee and Phil and Billy and Jacob Black were sitting in a misshapen circle around Charlie's bed until Edward and I stepped into the room. Renee was on her feet the second she saw me, throwing herself at me, tears streaming down her face, effectively blocking my view of Charlie. I don't know if she meant to, if she was trying to shield me from what I would see, but the only glimpse I had of Charlie was his dark hair before she was clinging to me. She was saying something, the words spilling out of her lips too fast for even me with my vampire hearing to understand, but I wasn't really listening. I noticed several things all at once that completely floored me.

Firstly, as soon as Renee's arms were locked around me, venom started incessantly pooling in my mouth. I could hear the veins pulsing in her neck, her heart beating against the thin skin under her shirt, and the blood rushing through her whole body, begging to be tasted. In my mind, I could see myself attacking her, throwing her against the wall before even Edward, as quick as he was, could stop me. I could almost feel my teeth tearing through something soft, delicate, and delicious, and I very nearly moaned out loud when I thought about her blood gushing into my mouth, coursing down my throat, satisfying the very darkest needs I had. But then I remembered that Renee was my mother and, as quickly as the images had started flashing in mind, they stopped and I was back to myself, standing awkwardly in a hospital room, my arms still hanging stiffly at my sides. Guiltily, I wrapped my arms around her, hearing her surprised gasp when she felt how hard my body was, how cold my skin was. I knew that I looked quite different to her than I had the last time she saw me in Phoenix, broken, lying in the hospital just like Charlie was now, after James had attacked me. I didn't know how I was going to explain the changes to her without revealing what I was, but I hoped that the situation with Charlie would distract her enough that she wouldn't bring it up.

Secondly, I noticed that Jacob had jumped to his feet the moment Renee threw herself at me, knocking over his chair in the process, his muscles tensed, as though he wanted to lunge between us. He had startled both Billy and Phil, who were both looking at him like he was crazy. Inhaling deeply, I realized that the wolf smell I had identified earlier was coming from him and that he knew without having to see my eyes that I was a vampire now. He probably thought I was going to try to bite my own mother, which, in reality, I had thought about doing, however briefly. I couldn't believe how quickly the bitter taste of self-loathing crept up my throat and, even though he was still out in the hallway, I heard Jasper gasp and stumble back into the wall. I knew that he was feeling everything I was feeling, but I couldn't stop hating myself for what I had been thinking of doing to Renee, and I knew that Jacob had every right to be wary of me. However, he just stood there, across the room, his black eyes piercing into mine, and I knew that whatever friendship had been between us before I left for Barrow was gone. I was a vampire now and he was a wolf. We were mortal enemies, or so it seemed, and tears pricked into my eyes again. I felt like, in another life, Jacob and I could have been family, but that life was gone now.

Lastly, I noticed that through all of it, Edward hadn't moved an inch. He was standing next to me, waiting, seeing how I would react, but letting me stay in control. He didn't try to pry Renee off of me or intercept her when she lunged at me and he didn't growl at Jacob or throw himself between the two of us, my eternal savior. Instead, he stood there, watching me, his eyes so concerned, so full of love, that I felt like I couldn't breathe. I knew it was killing him; I could see how tense he was. He wanted to jump in and take control of everything, hide me from all of the pain I was going to experience in that little room, but he didn't. Where he found the restraint, I didn't know, but I suddenly found myself wanting him to step forward like he usually did and handle everything. I didn't know what to do.

"Oh, Bella," Renee said, crying against my shoulder, interrupting my thoughts. She pulled away, still clutching my forearms, and looked at me. When she was focused, my mother always noticed things that no one else seemed to and, as she studied me, something flitted across her face that made my stomach drop – suspicion. She knew I was different and, while she had no reason to believe that I had become a vampire, of all things, I knew she wouldn't stop until she knew exactly what was going on. "I can't believe it's only been a few months since I've seen you, Bella. You look so different," she stated.

When I saw her eyes drift to my sunglasses and her hands started moving up my arms, I stepped back, away from her, breaking the physical contact between us. "I don't look that different," I countered, hoping she would drop it.

"Yeah, you _really_ do," Phil said, rising to his feet and joining Renee. "Have you been working out or something?" He asked.

"And don't you get _any_ sun up here in Forks? You're so pale, Bella. I mean, you've always been pale," she corrected herself, chuckling, "but you look like you haven't been outside in months."

"Didn't Charlie tell you anything about where I've been?" I asked.

"No," Renee said, shaking her head. "When Billy called and told me about Charlie's…well, what happened to Charlie, he said that you were on a trip, but he didn't know where you were. Obviously, I couldn't ask your dad," she said softly, turning to look back at him, sniffling. "Where have you been anyway? We've been so worried about you. No one could get in touch with you."

"Alaska," I replied. "Hence the lack of a tan."

"Oh," she replied, seemingly satisfied with my response, but then her eyes narrowed. "Was Edward with you?" She asked and I internally groaned. I knew that she and Charlie had been in contact far more than usual in recent months due to my nearly catatonic state after Edward's departure from Forks. Whatever animosity Charlie held for the bronze haired vampire standing at my side seemed to have transferred over to Renee as well.

"No," I replied. "I went by myself. Charlie's nephew, Eben, was getting married. He and his wife are out in the hallway, actually. They were upset when they heard about Charlie and wanted to come here with me."

"So, _Alaska_. How was that?" Jacob asked, malice dripping in his voice. His words intruded upon the cluster we had formed by the door and, reluctantly, Renee and Phil stepped back. I looked Charlie for the first time and I stopped breathing from the shock of what I saw. Before I knew I was about to fall, Edward's arm was around me, holding me up, giving me the strength I didn't have. No one else seemed to have noticed how close I was to dropping the floor. Closing my eyes, I swallowed down the sobs that were trying to tear through my throat. Charlie looked like he had been mauled by a bear. His skin was covered in bandages and a breathing tube obscured much of his face. The heart monitor in the corner beeped every few seconds, keeping time with his heart, but I could hear how weak it was. I breathed in again, the smell of antiseptic stinging my nose, and I cringed. Charlie's blood smelled rotten to me.

"Alaska was fine," I replied absently, my voice faltering. "Will he be okay?" I asked, looking over at Renee. She smiled at me, but it was a sad smile, and it told me more than words ever could.

"Well, he's in a coma, honey," she said slowly. "The doctors aren't sure when he's going to wake up."

"When?" I asked.

"_If_," Phil corrected, staring down at his shoes. I was struck again by what a great guy Phil really was. He had flown all the way from Florida to sit around in a hospital room with his wife's ex-husband, watching her cry for him, watching her worry over him, and yet he genuinely seemed concerned about Charlie.

"But you know Charlie," Renee added, trying to reassure me, "he's stubborn, just like you. He'll wake up."

"Meet any interesting people in Alaska?" Jake asked and Billy wacked him in the knee with his wheelchair. "Ow," he muttered, glaring over at his father and rubbing his leg.

"Stop asking stupid questions," Billy mumbled. "Can't you see she's having a hard time here?"

"Can't you see _what_ she is?" Jacob shot back, too low for Renee and Phil to hear, but the rest of us heard him quite clearly. Billy's eyes shifted over to me, searching, scrutinizing my appearance, and then they widened, understanding dawning on his face. Jacob started shaking violently, his black eyes mere slits and I knew that things were starting to spin out of control. I needed to do something before Jacob phased right there in the hospital room.

"Mom?" I asked. "Can you give me a few minutes with Billy and Jacob? I really want to thank them for looking out for Charlie while I was gone. Besides," I added, flashing her a brilliant smile, my sweet breath fogging up her mind, "I want to spend some time with Charlie – alone."

"Okay, Bella," she agreed quickly, confusion furrowing her brows for a moment before she pulled Phil out of the room. She didn't know why she had agreed, she wanted to stay in the room with Charlie and I, but I had dazzled her. Edward quietly closed the door behind them and the click that reverberated through the room seemed oddly ominous.

"Bella…," Billy began, but I shook my head.

"The Cullens didn't break the treaty," I interrupted. "I wasn't bitten. I did this to myself."

"How?" He asked.

"That's not important right now," I replied evasively, not wanting to have _that_ conversation again. I glanced over at Edward out of the corner of my eye, but he was looking away, his face pained. "I want to know what happened to Charlie – what really happened."

"Calm down, son," Billy said, sighing. He laid a hand on Jacob's shoulder and he stopped shaking, but he didn't sit down again. Instead, he started pacing on the other side of the room, a caged animal. I knew that he wanted nothing more than to give into his instincts and attack the vampires in the room, but I had to admire him for trying so hard to deny what was in his very nature.

"I'm okay," Jacob mumbled.

"While you were gone," Billy said, turning back to Edward and I, "we had some trouble with a vampire."

Edward's head snapped up at Billy's words. "A vampire?" He asked.

Billy nodded. "One with red hair."

I groaned, if only to keep from whimpering in fear. I may not have been some weak human anymore, but that didn't mean that the memory of my encounter with James and his coven didn't still terrify me. "Victoria," I muttered.

"Is that its name?" Jacob asked.

"Yes," Edward replied. "She's been in Forks?"

"She's been around," Billy answered. "Forks, Seattle. There's been a string of murders up there we think she's responsible for."

"What does she want?" I asked.

Billy shrugged. "We didn't know at first," he replied. "She was just hanging around, long enough for the pack to notice her and give chase, but never long enough to get caught. She's a quick one," he chuckled humorlessly. "However," he added, his voice somber, "I think given what happened to your father, it's safe to assume she wants you, Bella."

"Charlie wasn't attacked by robbers," I concluded, my eyes straying over to him again.

"No," Jacob said. He had stopped pacing and he looked calmer, as though he had made peace with the fact that he had to be conversing with vampires. I couldn't help but notice that he didn't look much like the boy I had talked to on the beach in La Push. His whole body was one mass of muscles now and he seemed to have grown a foot since I had seen him last. His easy smile was gone now too, his face lined with responsibility. "Victoria attacked your father," he explained. "Billy, me, and some guys from the pack were heading over there to watch the game. We smelled her before we even reached the house and charged in. She didn't bite him or anything," Jacob said, looking down at Charlie. "She was just…well, you can see."

I nodded, grateful that he didn't elaborate. "Shit," I muttered, running a hand through my hair, trying to organize my thoughts.

"Why is she coming after you, Bella?" Billy asked.

"I believe that Victoria thinks Bella is responsible for the death of her mate, James," Edward answered. "James became fixated on Bella last spring, dangerously so. My family and I destroyed him, but we didn't think Victoria was a threat at the time. Apparently, that's changed. She must be coming after Bella for revenge."

"Why not come after you and your family?" Jake asked, folding his arms over his massive chest. Jacob rivaled even Emmett when it came to muscles.

"I don't know," Edward said, frustrated. It didn't leak into his voice, but I could tell by the way his mouth was set in a tight line.

"Is she still around?" I asked, anger boiling up in my veins when I thought of her harming Charlie. I knew what he had gone through, James had inflicted similar pain on me, though I hadn't ended up in a coma.

"Yes," Billy answered. "The pack is taking shifts, scouring the town for her, trying to pick up her trail."

"Of course, we can't do that anymore now that _you're_ back," Jacob muttered, referring to the Cullens.

"I don't know how Sam feels about us right now," Edward said hesitantly, "but if he's amenable, my family would be willing to work something out." Jacob looked up in surprise and nodded.

"I'm going to kill her," I said, lowly, my voice a dangerous growl.

"Bella," Edward said, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "You don't understand. _I_ am going to kill her. I don't care who finds her. I'm going to be the one to kill her. Is that understood?" I asked, looking back and forth between Jacob and Edward. Both men nodded, seeing the ferocity in my eyes. "One more thing," I said, looking back at Billy. "Charlie…how much do you think he knows?" I asked, glancing down at my broken father.

Billy sighed. "Everything."


	23. Changes

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Changes:

_Rosalie POV_

It had been a day and a half since the others left to return to Forks, a tense day and a half. Emmett was lying next to me, his huge arms easily engulfing me. He was staring at the television, but I was fairly certain he wasn't actually watching the Oprah rerun. Carlisle was out, hunting for me, and Esme was flitting about the room, unable to settle while her mate was gone. I snuggled closer to Emmett, realizing again how lucky I was to have him in my life. I knew that he loved Bella and it was killing him to stay in the hotel when he wanted to be in Forks, but he never said anything about it, he never did anything but smile down at me and whisper over and over that everything would okay. The burns were slowly starting to heal and I could feel my skin stretching and pulling, smoothing out, erasing the scars that would have permanently marred my appearance had I been human.

I knew that Emmett was proud of me; I could see it when he looked at me, his eyes shining with something that he couldn't seem to express in words. My reluctance to accept Bella had always been a sore spot between us, something that neither of us really understood, but something changed in Barrow, shifted, and I could honestly say that I looked at Bella as my sister now. I had never been able to comprehend why she wanted to become vampire. It was unfathomable to me; had I been given the choice, I may have let myself die on that street all of those years ago. I would have missed much, Emmett, my family, all of the time I'd had to learn and grow and realize that there was more to me than I had ever imagined, but I still couldn't honestly say that I would have accepted this life knowing what I would've had to give up. Yet, Bella had wanted it more than anything because she had wanted Edward more than anything. But I knew that Bella hadn't wanted her transformation to be like it was. If she had been given a choice, she would have chosen differently too and perhaps that was why I could respect and love her now when I couldn't before. I had never felt closer to Emmett now that I was close to Bella and I knew he felt the same way.

My skin was starting it itch, the pain having subsided, and I shifted restlessly. "You okay?" Emmett asked, gazing down at me.

"Yes," I replied, trying to restrain myself from clawing open my arms in an attempt to relieve the horrible burning that was shooting through my nerve endings.

Fortunately, Carlisle arrived a few minutes later with two foxes. The blood helped to soothe the itch and I found that after eating I could sit up on my own. "You're making excellent progress," Carlisle said, sitting down on the edge of the bed as he examined my wounds. "These should be gone in a matter of days."

"Does that mean we can leave?" Emmett asked, hope ringing in his voice. Esme smiled over at him, placing a restraining arm on his shoulder.

"There's no need to rush her," she said. "We'll leave when you feel ready, Rose," she added, looking to me.

"I think I could sit up in a car," I said hesitantly, assessing how much it hurt when I moved, when I shifted, when I had to lift my legs or swivel my hips.

"We'll leave in the morning then," Carlisle announced. He stepped out to call Edward and Esme turned to me, a nervous look in her eyes.

"Rose," she started, moving over to my side of the bed and sitting down next to me, curling into the indentation that Carlisle had left in the blankets only moments before. "We'll have to get you cleaned up a little before we leave."

"Okay," I said, nodding. A shower and different clothes sounded lovely.

"I think I'm gonna step outside," Emmett said suddenly. I groaned in protest when he slipped out from underneath of me, but he hurried away, his eyes glued on the door, a slightly frightened look wrinkling his face.

"Esme," I said, my voice a low, threatening growl. "What is it you aren't telling me?"

"Well, honey," she replied, placing her hand on top of mine. "When you caught on fire…there was some damage."

"Damage?" I asked.

"To your hair," she elaborated.

I tried to swallow down the sinking feeling creeping up from my stomach, not wanting to be that vain, but I couldn't. "My hair?" I asked, my voice emerging as a high pitched squeak. I thought about my beautiful, golden curls cascading down my back. "Oh God help me," I muttered automatically imaging the worst. I had been in too much pain to worry about my appearance; I hadn't even ran a brush through my hair since Barrow. Now, sitting on that bed, gazing into Esme's loving, caring, and entirely too sympathetic face, I couldn't even bring myself to reach up and touch my locks, afraid of what I'd find.

"It's not that bad," she said reassuringly. "But…some of your hair did get singed and, since it won't grow back, we're going to have to cut it."

"Cut it?" I asked.

"I'm afraid so," Esme replied.

"I swear to God, if you make me look like a pixie…" I warned, but she interrupted me.

"It won't be that drastic," she replied, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. I felt so guilty about how upset I was. It seemed as though everyone in my family had been confronting issues much worse than mine, but I couldn't help but want to cry. I wanted to ball my eyes out. Even as a human, I had never liked to have my hair cut. Something about it had always upset me, but it was worse now that I was a vampire. I couldn't placate myself with promises that if I didn't like my new look my hair would always grow back. Esme silently flitted over to the bathroom and came back with a pair of scissors. "I only have to cut about five inches," she explained, sitting behind me now. "Your hair will hang down to about your shoulders when I'm done." I felt like hyperventilating. I could hear the scissors open and I sucked in an unnecessary breath, squeezing my eyes closed when I felt the scissors tighten around my hair. When the first golden lock fluttered down to the blankets, I screamed.

………………………………….

_Sam POV_

The pack was gathered around me, with the exception of Jacob, who was still at the hospital, a myriad of emotions troubling their eyes. Leah and Seth stood together, but their expressions couldn't have been any different. The hostility in Leah's eyes was contradicted by the curiosity in Seth's. Quil and Embry were both confused, but relaxed, while Jared and Paul were itching to fight. The pack was split down the middle; they didn't know whether they believed Bella's assertion that she hadn't been changed by the Cullens. I didn't know whether to believe her either. She had left Forks a human and returned a vampire. A million scenarios ran through my mind, but I couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that perhaps the Cullens' decision to leave Forks had only been a ruse, a trick to make us believe that they had left for good, only so they could call Bella to them later and bite her away from Forks. Maybe they thought the treaty would remain intact if she wasn't turned here. I wasn't the only one who had seen the scar on her hand, the bite mark, the one that we all knew would sparkle like diamonds if the sunlight hit it, just like the rest of her would now.

However, what to do was a decision that fell solely on my shoulders. I was the pack leader, the alpha, and I as much as I hated to admit it, I didn't know what to do. Charlie had always been a friend to our people, to the Blacks. Bella fell under our protection simply by virtue of being his daughter. Even if we determined that the Cullens had violated the treaty, I still didn't know if we could go after them. Doing so would mean having to fight Bella as well and, even though she was a vampire, I couldn't, I _wouldn't_, be the one to finally take Charlie's daughter away from him. Yet, I knew that we couldn't just let the leeches slide. Something had to give, but I didn't know what.

"What're we gonna do?" Paul asked, cracking his knuckles absently.

"I don't know yet," I said quietly.

"We should take out the bloodsuckers that are here already," Jared suggested. "Then when the others come back, half their people will be dead. Wiping them out will be easy."

"And what if what Bella said was true?" Seth spoke up. "What if they really didn't bite her? We can't attack them if they didn't violate the treaty."

"She had to have been bitten," Leah replied. "I don't care what she says. You don't just turn into a vampire."

"Enough!" I yelled. The pack fell silent. "We do nothing until Carlisle arrives. I want to hear everything from him first before I make a decision," I said. They nodded, Paul and Jared reluctantly agreeing, but I wondered how long I could keep them from doing something that would start a war I wasn't certain we were prepared to fight.

……………………..

_Edward POV_

The room fell silent again as Bella processed everything she had been told. I hated simply standing there, waiting, unable to do anything. Jacob was torn between attacking the vampires standing in front of him and joking around with Bella as he had before she had been turned. A certain memory was playing over and over in his mind – he and Bella walking down the beach at La Push. She had been flirting with him, batting her eyelashes at him, resting her hand on his arm. He was trying to reconcile his memories of her with what she was now, but he was failing miserably. Whenever he would tense, his muscles automatically reacting to our presence in the room, I wanted to step between them, just in case he lost his temper, but I knew that Bella would have been angry if I interfered. If she wanted more control, I would give it to her, but that didn't mean I had to like it. Finally, she spoke, her voice a beautiful chiming of bells that soothed my frayed nerves.

"What do you mean he knows everything?" She asked.

Jacob sighed and finally sat down in the chair next to his father, resignation winning out over his anger. "Well," he answered, trying to process his thoughts. Listening to him was giving me a headache. "He saw Victoria's eyes, that much I know for sure. I don't know what she said to him, if she revealed what she was, if she explained why she was hurting him." Bella hissed lowly between her teeth and I slide my hand up her arm, trying to ignore the warmth that flooded through me from such a simple touch. I loved how my body reacted to her, but right now, I didn't want her thinking that I was trying to make a move on her. I still couldn't banish from my mind the image of her angry, grief stricken, panicked face when I kissed her and she fled. I wasn't going to try anything like that again anytime soon, but I wanted her to know that I was there if she needed me. She relaxed when my fingers touched her skin, unconsciously moving closer to me, resting her body against my side, and I smiled despite myself.

"But I know for certain that he saw me and Sam and Quil transform. We rushed into the house when we realized what was happening," Jacob explained. "He looked over and saw us standing there and, while he was watching, we all transformed into wolves."

"So he saw you become wolves?" I asked.

"Yes," Jacob admitted.

"I wonder if he'll remember when he wakes up," Bella said thoughtfully. "If he does, we'll have to explain everything to him."

"Bella," I said quietly, "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"I'm fairly certain he already knows quite a bit," Jacob said dryly. "Filling in the blanks for him won't hurt anything.

"You're worried he won't accept what I am now," Bella surmised, looking over at me. Her eyes weren't so angry anymore. In fact, she looked surprised, almost grateful.

"I don't want you to get hurt," I said.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," she decided. "Thank you for saving him," she added, looking back at Jacob.

"You're welcome," Jacob replied stiffly.

Bella nodded. "As much as I'd love to stay here," she said, "I'm not sure it's a good idea. I'm feeling a bit thirsty." She looked back at me again with something like guilt in her eyes. I cocked my head, wishing I could read her thoughts, but she just smiled sadly at me and shook her head. "Besides," she added, "I don't know how long Jasper can stay in the hospital without freaking out."

"You mean from the blood?" Billy asked.

"And the emotions," Bella replied. "I'm sure there's a lot of bad ones floating around and he's absorbing them all." Billy and Jacob looked confused; they didn't know about Jasper's ability. But it amazed me how thoughtful Bella was, never worrying about herself, always more concerned with others. "I'll be coming back," she said. "But if he wakes up while I'm gone, please contact me."

"Of course," Billy agreed.

Sighing, Bella let her gaze linger on her father before she slipped quietly from the room. I followed after her, finding Alice, Jasper, Stella, Eben, Beau, Renee, and Phil all waiting for us out in the hallway. "How are you doing, honey?" Renee asked, immediately drawing her into another hug.

"I'm okay," Bella mumbled into her shoulder, pulling away. "But it was a long drive. I think we all could use some sleep," she said, looking at the others. Beau, Eben, and Stella were clearly exhausted.

"We'll be heading back to our house, I presume?" Alice asked, even though she already knew. Bella nodded.

"You're more than welcome to come along if you wish," I offered, smiling as politely at Bella's mother and stepfather, though I knew the moment I spoke that they would decline. They weren't comfortable around Jasper, Alice, and I. As much as neither of them wanted to admit it, they both found themselves feeling uncomfortable around Bella too. Renee was struggling to push those feelings away, guilty at the way she suddenly felt toward her own daughter. She didn't understand that she was supposed to react that way to vampires.

"That's okay," Renee said. "I want to stay here longer. Besides, Phil got us a hotel room."

"Okay," Bella said. "We'll be back soon. Billy promised to let me know if anything changes."

"What's the number at your house?" Renee asked, looking at me, taking out her cell phone. Wordlessly, Alice slipped it from her hand and programmed the number.

"All set?" Alice asked, locking her arm with Jasper's. My brother looked completely drained. He stood restlessly, fidgeting, his eyes darting around the hallway, clearly uncomfortable with being surrounded by sick, bleeding people and their overly emotional relatives. The others began to file down the hallway toward the exit, but Bella hesitated, looking wistfully back into the room at her father.

Holding out my hand, I smiled at her. "You coming?" I asked. She looked back at me, torn, but then took my hand. My heart soared when she tentatively smiled back.

"Let's go home," she said.


	24. A New Beginning

_30 Days of Night_

Notes:

Sorry for the delay with this and sorry that this chapter is shorter than the others. It's been a crazy week and next week may be even crazier. I hope to post next week, but I'm having surgery on my hand, so I'm not sure if typing will be my friend right away. Thanks for all of the reviews and your patience!

Chapter Twenty-Four: A New Beginning:

_BPOV_

The car ride to the Cullens' house was silent. Stella, Eben, and Beau were all drifting off to sleep in the backseat. I think Alice knew that I needed the quiet to help me process everything that had happened in the last month and, though she was itching to talk to me, she kept her mouth shut and I ignored the side long glances she kept shooting me. The attack on Barrow, the decision to inject myself with vampire venom, the transformation, the fight in which Rosalie and I had been burned, the news that my father had been attacked by Victoria, the confrontation with the werewolves, and the kiss that Edward and I had shared all filled my mind with a cacophony of doubt, worry, anger, and fear. I knew that I needed to make some decisions about my life and what was going to happen now that I was a vampire, but I needed time, more time than I had. I didn't want to think about anything and I didn't like the fact that my brain could process so many different thoughts at one time. All I really wanted to do was lose myself in the glorious oblivion of sleep, but I couldn't, not anymore.

But one thought I couldn't quite get out of my mind, one nagging little thought that lingered, poking me every once in a while as I tried to just stare out of the window and watch the scenery flash by at an obscenely high rate of speed. I missed Edward. He was in the car behind us, driving with Jasper, but I missed having him next to me. I had been relying on him in the hospital more than I knew at the time and, now that we were separated again, my entire body called out to him, wanting him near. I hated that I felt so attached to him again, I hated that I found myself wanting to let him in, wanting to love him again, but I knew that I would lose the battle to resist. I couldn't resist him; I never could. He always dazzled me, even now.

Things had been much simpler before he left. Every night, before I would go to sleep, he would climb into my window, and we would talk until I drifted off. When I woke up in the morning, he would be there. He had been something that I could always rely on, something that I could count on, a constant. Moving to Forks had been one of the hardest things I had ever done, but he had made it so much easier. Then, when he left, everything just felt wrong, the whole world felt wrong. Yet, now that he was back, the whole world didn't really feel right again. I wasn't sure that the world would ever feel right again to me. The world just was and we were both in it and everything that had happened could never be erased. We could learn to live with it, to put the pain aside and move on. I knew that I would never forget and, probably, a small part of me would never forgive him either, but I also knew that if I tried hard enough I could find it in myself to love him again without dwelling on all bad things that had happened.

Despite the pain, despite the anger, I wanted that. I wanted to move on and get back to my life. Sighing, I leaned my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. "What's going on?" Alice asked, finally breaking the silence. I heard Stella jump in the backseat, then settle back down with her head on Eben's shoulder. "You're being indecisive. When I look into your future, I just see jumbles of images."

"Nothing's going on," I replied. "And you shouldn't be searching through my future when you're driving."

"I know you better than that," Alice countered. "You're a horrible liar, Bella. And I can drive just fine, thank you."

"It's been a long couple of months," I said quietly.

"I know," Alice said, a little guiltily.

"I feel like I could sleep for years," I murmured. "But that's not really possible anymore."

"I'm sorry," Alice offered.

"It's not your fault," I said, giving her a small smile. I knew that things still weren't quite right between us, but I felt like the worst of it was behind us. Alice was my best friend again; she always had been.

"Well," Alice said slowly, "it sort of is. I should have see something. I mean, really, I missed quite a bit."

"Maybe you're on the fritz," I joked, but she looked so sad at the thought that I quickly took her hand. "I'm kidding," I added. "Your focus was elsewhere. You can't see everything all at once."

"You and Edward seemed…closer…when we left the hospital," Alice said knowingly.

"What have you seen?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"Nothing," she shrugged. Something dark passed across her face and I wondered what it meant.

"You're not a very good liar either," I snorted.

"I've pulled quite a few things off on you," Alice shot back. "But seriously," she continued, "I know that you're hurt and Edward has a great deal to do with that."

"But?" I prompted.

"But you need each other," she said. "It's as simple as that. You were supposed to have a future together, one that I saw many times. That's changed now, but that doesn't mean you can't have a different future." She sighed and looked so lost for a moment. I wondered what she had seen, what I had lost out on that I was supposed to have, but I wasn't sure she would ever tell me.

"Maybe you're right," I mumbled, looking down at my hands.

"What's that?" Alice asked, a smirk playing at her lips.

"I said maybe you're right," I replied louder.

"Of course I am," Alice said smugly. "You'd never bet against _me_, right?"

"Not in a million years," I said, laughing. It felt good to laugh again, to really laugh, without bitterness or sadness behind it. Alice smiled widely and turned the car into the driveway that led to the house. The vegetation had partially taken over the road, vines and plants obscuring everything from view. I was back in a wet, green world, much different from the snow blanketed whiteness of Barrow. I knew that it was cold here, though not as cold as in Barrow, but I couldn't feel it. Everything felt temperate to me now; heat and cold were things that couldn't affect my body anymore.

Finally, the trees pulled back and I saw the house. The grass had grown even taller since the last time I was here. The house was dark, but it didn't seem quite as unwelcoming anymore. There was still something strange about seeing it. It was like coming back to your childhood home after many years and expecting it to be exactly the same. The house was still here, but it wasn't the same, not anymore. Too many things had changed. The old memories were still there, the pain was still there, regret and even a little bitterness were still there, but hope was there too. I wasn't coming back to this house to try to relive the past; I was coming back ready for the future. Alice pulled the car into the garage and I was surprised see Emmett's Jeep still parked there. Evidently, they hadn't taken everything with them.

"Ready?" Alice asked, looking over at me.

"Yeah," I replied, getting out of the car. Edward had pulled in next to us and I offered him a tentative smile when he stepped out. His face lit up, but he quickly tried to reign in his reaction. "Alice?" I asked, looking back at her. "Can you get them situated?" Stella, Eben, and Beau had stumbled out of the back of the truck, all sleepily rubbing their eyes.

"Can't believe I'm gonna be sleeping in a vampire's house," Beau mumbled as Alice led them through the garage. Jasper eyed me suspiciously for a moment before nodding to me and following his wife. "Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"Oh, suck it up," Stella shot back jokingly.

I listened as their voices faded, though I could still hear them, even when they moved to the second floor. I could still hear their heartbeats too. Edward and I stood in the garage, staring awkwardly at each other. He was waiting for me to speak, but I couldn't quite find the words, and I knew he was getting impatient with me. He had always wanted to be able to read my mind, but it was silent to him, and waiting to hear what I had to say instead of just picking it out of my mind had never been something he was good at.

"Bella?" He asked cautiously.

"I overreacted," I blurted out, cringing at my inability to control the filter between my mouth and brain. That was not how I wanted to start the conversation, but since I had jumped right through the pleasantries to the main issue, there was no point in dawdling.

"To what?" He asked confusedly.

"When you kissed me in the car, I overreacted," I clarified.

He looked at me for several long seconds, during which I began to desperately wish I could read his mind, when he finally spoke. "How so?" He asked. His voice was still wary, but there was something gleaming in his eyes now, hope maybe.

"I shouldn't have just jumped out of the car like that," I said, sighing. I leaned against the counter where Rosalie's tools were still laid out and folded my arms over my chest. "We were having a conversation that I didn't want to deal with and I ran."

"And now?" He asked.

"Now maybe I'm ready to have that conversation," I said hesitantly.

"Does this mean..?" He trailed off and I saw the hope growing.

"This means I'm willing to try," I said. He smiled at me and moved closer, cupping the side of my face. I used to think that his hands were so cold, but now they felt normal to me. Everything about this moment felt normal. The only weird thing was that I couldn't hear my heart beating away anymore like a crazed drummer when he touched me. I didn't want to look up at him; I didn't want to see the desire and love in his eyes. Instead, I kept my eyes rooted to his chest, but finally, he touched his fingers under my chin and lifted. I stopped breathing when I saw the look on his face. Such love and adoration was shining back at me in his eyes, for a second, I felt human again. I felt like I had the time he kissed me and I stopped breathing.

"Glad to see I still affect you," he chuckled. Before I even realized that I was starting to fall over, he had his arm around my waist.

"As if you could ever doubt that," I murmured, unable to tear my eyes away from his now that he had me trapped with his gaze.

He frowned, pain marring his beautiful, topaz colored orbs. "In the car," he said, his voice tight as he tried to control his emotions, "I thought that maybe I was too late. I thought that maybe you hated me, or worse, that you didn't feel anything toward me anymore."

"Even when I was at my most angry," I said, tentatively sliding my hands up his chest, over his shoulders, "I still didn't hate you. I always loved you, Edward. I always will. Yes, I'm angry with you. Yes, you hurt me and, yes, I didn't know what to do about all of that at first, but I'll never not love you. If I can forgive the others, I can try to forgive you."

"I will never leave you again," he vowed.

"You say that now," I whispered.

"I mean it," he promised.

"I don't know if I can believe you," I said, my voice breaking.

"I'll prove it to you," he said.

"Okay," I nodded. I wanted him to prove it to me, more than anything. I felt like tears should have been streaming down my face, but I couldn't cry. My chest tightened, my throat burned, and my eyes swam, but I could never cry. Still, he rubbed his thumbs underneath of my eyes, as though to wipe away the tears that he still half expected to see there. "We have to take this slow," I warned.

"I'll do anything you want," he replied. "We have all the time in the world."


	25. An Unexpected Face

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Twenty-Five: An Unexpected Face:

_Bella POV_

When you can't sleep, you have vast amounts of time to think and, when your brain works at a speed that would put some computers to shame, you can entertain vast amounts of thoughts at once. I suppose that ability comes in handy in certain circumstances, such as hunting, when vampires need to take into account things like sights, smells, sounds, terrain, enemies, danger, and distances. It takes even more multitasking when trying to interact with humans. But when it's three o'clock in the morning and all you can do is lay on a bed that's not your own and stare at a ceiling that's part of a home that you had once wanted to share more than anything, all of those thoughts, all of those processes, are little daggers that chip away at you, that eat into the walls you build around yourself to keep from falling apart. I was starting to fall apart. I thought about my life and how everything seemed to have gone wrong, about how I had come to this place, about how my life had taken so many bad turns and how everything I had wanted was suddenly gone, replaced by things I hadn't ever really thought about. Then I thought about how some things I had wanted I now had, even though I had gotten them at a price.

I was a vampire; I was dead. Maybe someday I'd graduate from high school and go to college and get that literature degree I had always dreamed about, but it wouldn't be the same because I would still be dead and my father, even if he pulled out of his coma, still wouldn't be able to be there. I thought about Edward and how much I loved him and how much I wanted to forgive him, but also how much he had hurt me and how much I hated him sometimes for making me feel things I never wanted to feel again. By the time the clock struck four, I had thought about so many different things, all of them swirling around my mind at once, I thought I was starting to go crazy.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. Being in the Cullen house was too difficult. Laying on that bed, hearing what everyone was doing, what they were saying, wishing that I could just gather up the courage to go into Edward's bedroom and lay with him instead of in the guest room, where I felt like an outsider all over again, was too much. I stood, my muscles firing, the sudden, desperate need to run overpowering me. Wrenching open the bedroom door, I flew down the stairs, toward the back doors, through which I could hear the trees groaning in the wind and the river rushing, tumbling gallons of water downstream over the rocks.

Alice's musical voice stopped me. "And just where do you think you're going?" She asked. I turned and saw her standing in the doorway to the living room, her hands on her hips, her head cocked to the side, a small smirk playing on her lips.

"For a run," I said.

"Alone?" Alice asked, frowning now.

"I need some space," I said, clawing at my hair, running my hands through my messy locks. Sighing in frustration, I shook my head. "It's all too much, all of these thoughts. I feel like my brain is going to explode."

"You shouldn't go out alone," Alice said sternly.

I knew that she wanted me to ask her to go with me, but I couldn't. Alice would ask me too many questions. She would want to try to help me sort through things and I didn't want help. I didn't want to sort through my thoughts, I just wanted to forget them for a while. "Did you see anything to indicate that I shouldn't go out alone?" I asked.

"Well, no," she replied hesitantly, taking a few steps forward. "But I can't seem to see much of importance these days," she added bitterly. I knew that she was frustrated with her now flailing ability. "Maybe when Carlisle gets here he can help us figure out why," she mused. "Still, you shouldn't go out alone, not being a newborn and not with Victoria out there and werewolves running the border. You don't even know where the border is," she pointed out.

"I think it's safe to assume when I start to smell wet dog I'm close," I muttered. Rolling my eyes, I called out, "Jasper? Can you come here?"

He appeared from Carlisle's study, silently moving down the stairs. "Yes?" He asked.

"I want to go for a run and maybe hunt something while I'm out there," I explained. "Alice says I need a chaperone. Care to go with?" I saw Alice's face fall and I knew she was hurt that I didn't ask her. I knew Edward was hurt too; I could hear a hitch in his breathing before it resumed its normal rhythm.

"Of course," Jasper said, flashing his wife an apologetic smile before moving out the door with me.

We ran in silence for about fifty miles until I finally slowed and stopped altogether. I should have been panting, out of breath, but I wasn't. I felt like I had only run a couple of feet. As a human, I would have been stumbling all over the place, tripping on tree roots and face planting in the mud. Now, I moved just as swiftly, gracefully, and quietly as Jasper. Walking over to a rock outcropping, I sat down, Jasper taking a seat beside me.

"Good run?" He finally asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "I needed to get out of that house for a while."

"I know," he said dryly.

Smiling sheepishly, I shrugged. "Sorry," I said. Of course Jasper knew, he had been able to feel every single one of my emotions. I felt bad about making him go with me; it was probably unbearable for him.

"It's okay," he said, bumping shoulders with me. It was like two rocks hitting each other. Old Bella would have been on the forest floor nursing a blackening bruise, but new Bella barely moved an inch. "For a very long time I've felt all of Edward's anguish, loneliness, and self-hatred. I'm used to it. Throwing your uncertainty and anger on the mix is just like throwing some twigs onto an already burning bonfire. It just lights up a little brighter for a while."

"It must suck to be you," I murmured, half-playfully, though part of me was serious. I hadn't really understood how horrible Jasper's gift could be. When someone was happy, he could feel it and share it, but when someone was miserable, he had no choice but to feel that too.

"Sometimes it does," he agreed, surprising me. I had never heard Jasper complain about anything. "But all the little moments make it worth it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, honestly curious. I didn't really know much about my older brother. He had always stayed away from me for my own protection and, now that he didn't have to, I wanted to get to know him better.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "when I find the perfect gift for Alice, even though she's already seen it in her mind and knows what it is, I still feel just how excited and happy she is to receive it and that makes me happy too. I feel the love between Esme and Carlisle when they look at each other, when she runs her hand over his, just like I feel the love between Rosalie and Emmett. In that motel room, I could feel how worried Emmett was about her. He was sick with it because he felt like he had failed her, but Rose was so content to lay there with him, despite the pain. She adores him," he explained, then he turned to look at me, his topaz eyes glimmering. "And when Edward brought you over for the first time, I could feel how much he loved you, how excited he was to have found you, how nervous, how…well, everything, and all of those years of anguish just melted away. I've never felt him freer or happier than when he's with you, even now."

I felt like crying again, only I knew that, if I could, tears of happiness would be flowing down my cheeks. Jasper silently wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I tucked my head into the crook of his arm. "I have a question," I said.

"What?" He asked.

"Back in Barrow and in the motel room," I said, "you were staring at me. I don't understand why. It was like you were trying to figure something out. I meant to ask you about it earlier, but everything's just been so crazy."

Jasper shifted folding his hands in his lap. "What did Edward tell you about me?" He asked.

"Not much," I admitted.

"I don't want to get into the whole story now," he said, looking down at his hands. "It's not something I like to talk about. But I have a great deal of experience with newborns."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Sighing, he rolled up his sleeve. I had never noticed them before, my human eyes unable to perceive them, but now I saw what seemed like thousands of intersecting scars that lined his arm, traveling up to where his shirt still covered his skin, and I imagined that his chest was littered with the scars too. "Oh, Jasper," I said, hesitantly reaching out to touch his arm. "What happened to you?"

"I trained newborn vampires down South," he said. "There was a time when the southern vampires would try to create armies. That's over now, the Volturi put an end to it."

"The vampire royalty?" I asked.

"For all intents and purposes, yes," he answered. "They don't like large groups of vampires banding together. It makes them feel threatened."

"What does this have to do with me?" I asked, scrunching up my face in confusion.

He laughed. "You're a newborn vampire, Bella," he said. "You're supposed to act a certain way, but you don't. In fact, you act the opposite of how you should."

"How so?" I asked.

"Your bloodlust should be insatiable," he explained. "You shouldn't be able to be within a mile of people without being overcome by it, yet, you rode in a car with three humans and didn't once try to attack them. Hell, you went into a hospital and came out completely calm."

"I wanted to bite my mother," I blurted out, then covered my mouth with shame.

"Bella, it's okay," Jasper said, reaching over to take my hand. "You have amazing control for a newborn. I can't really believe it. I'm sort of glad you wanted to bite your mother, it makes me feel less guilty about wanting to bite practically everyone," he joked. I found myself laughing along with him. "I'm sorry I was staring at you, but I just couldn't believe it. I kept waiting for your instincts to kick in and take over, but they never did. You truly astound me, Bella."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just laid my head back on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I wasn't certain how much time passed, but at nearly the same moment, both Jasper and I tensed. The scent reached me over the breeze, a sweet smell – the smell of vampires. For a moment, I thought it might be Edward or Alice coming to check on us, but I realized that I didn't recognize the scent. Then I picked up another. Jasper jumped to his feet, immediately assuming a defensive possession, motioning for me to mimic him.

"Can we run?" I asked.

"No," he replied lowly, "they're too close."

"Do you know who they are?" I pressed.

He inhaled deeply, his mouth set in a grim line. "One of them is Victoria. I recognize her scent from the baseball field."

"And the other?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied.

I didn't have to wait long to find out. I saw Victoria's flame red hair first as she stepped out of the trees. She was smiling smugly, her eyes locked on me. But it was the second vampire that captured my attention. My mouth dropped open. "Oh my God," I murmured.

"What is it?" Jasper asked, growling as they approached.

I couldn't reply, I couldn't look away, I couldn't do anything but stare into the red eyes of one man I truly never thought I would see again. I shouldn't have been so surprised, we hadn't disposed of any of them properly. We had never set any of them on fire for fear of alerting the others to our presence. Not until the last fight did any of them burn. Yet, I still couldn't believe it and I felt the familiar chill of fear clutching at my heart. Standing next to Victoria, with his arms crossed over his chest, was John Riis.


	26. The Fear of Not Knowing

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Fear of Not Knowing:

_Renee POV_

It was four o'clock in the morning and though I had tried to fall asleep curled uncomfortably in my pink, plastic hospital chair, something was making me restless, a nagging feeling that tugged at the back of my mind, alerting me that something was wrong. My thoughts were centered on Bella, my daughter, my beautiful daughter, who all of the sudden didn't seem quite like my daughter anymore. I knew that she was still growing up, every day growing more into the woman she would become, but I hadn't expected her to look so different in such a short period of time. It hadn't been long at all since she broke her leg in Phoenix; yet, looking at her now was like looking at an entirely different person. Even her voice sounded strange to my ears.

But it wasn't just her appearance that kept me awake. It was something else, something in the way she moved, in the way she held herself, in how still she could be, in those sunglasses she insisted on wearing inside, in the way she tensed when I hugged her, like her body was straining against something, and in how cold she was when I touched her skin. Something was wrong with her, but I didn't know what. However, the worst part of it was that I found myself oddly afraid of her. I didn't know why, I couldn't quite place it, but something about her made me nervous, edgy, like I was lost on an African plain being stalked by a lion. I glanced over at Phil, who had successfully managed to fall asleep. I had voiced my concerns to him, but he wasn't taking them seriously. He thought I was stressed out over Charlie, which, though true, wasn't why I was so fixated on the changes in Bella.

The more I thought about the whole situation, the weirder everything seemed to become. I didn't know why all of those boys from the reservation insisted on hanging around. I knew why Billy came, he and Charlie had always been best friends, but Sam and the others really had no business being there every day. They didn't even know Charlie that well, but they were hovering around the hospital constantly and, when I went to Charlie's house to take a shower the day before, I swear I saw Paul sneaking around the trees in the backyard. The whole town was concerned about Charlie, worried about their own safety, after all, there hadn't been an attack in a home like this in years in Forks, but I couldn't understand why the whole reservation seemed so anxious about him.

My cell phone was in my hand, its weight reminding me that one phone call would be all it would take to hear my daughter's voice again, the voice that sounded so strange to me now. I almost hit the button for the number that her little friend Alice had programmed into the phone, but I thought better of it. Bella would be asleep and she would think I was ridiculous for all of my suspicions. I laughed softly, shaking my head and running my hands through my hair. I _was_ being ridiculous. Bella was my daughter, not some monster, not some criminal. I had no reason to be suspicious of her, I had no reason to think anything was wrong. Maybe Phil was right, maybe the whole situation with Charlie really was grating at my nerves, wearing me down. I was about to slip the phone back into my pocket, when it suddenly started vibrating.

I glanced down at the screen, surprised the see that it was the Cullen residence. Accepting the call, I placed the phone next to my ear. "Hello?" I asked, expecting to hear Bella's voice.

"Renee? This is Alice," the person on the other end announced. The sound of her voice reminded me of wind chimes, but there was a certain urgency in it, a certain anxiety that I couldn't place.

"Alice? Hello, what can I do for you, honey?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, I realize it's late," she apologized, her words rushing together. "Are you at the hospital?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Good," she sighed in what seemed like relief. "Are any of the Quileute boys there? I need to speak with one of them. It doesn't matter which."

I frowned, wondering why Alice would be calling me asking about the boys from the reservation. "I think Sam was out in the waiting room," I said, getting to my feet. My legs protested, having been folded over in the same position too long. "I'll go get him for you."

"Thank you," Alice replied, then fell silent, waiting.

The hospital was quiet, the beeping of machines and the gentle scuffing of the nurses's shoes all I could hear. Out in the waiting room, I found Sam trying not to fall asleep while watching infomercials on the grainy television in the corner. My suspicions flared up again. Why did none of the boys ever go to sleep? Why did they sit there awake at all hours of the night like they were holding some kind of vigil? "Sam?" I asked, my voice echoing in the stillness. It made me jump, but he looked over at me calmly, his eyes holding a serenity that unnerved me.

"Yes?" He asked.

"Alice Cullen is on the phone for you," I said, extending it toward him.

He looked at me confused for several long moments before he shifted his gaze down to the phone still in my palm. Finally, he stood and moved over to me, crossing the room in three strides, and gently lifting the device from my hand. "Hello?" He asked, placing the phone to his ear. I watched him curiously. His voice hadn't been unfriendly, but it hadn't been warm either and I wondered what it was that he didn't like about Alice Cullen. I couldn't hear what Alice was saying, but the emotions that stormed across Sam's face, darkening his eyes, shocked me.

………………………….

_Sam POV_

"Hello?" I asked, placing the phone to my ear. I was surprised that the vampire was asking for me, but I thought that maybe Carlisle had finally come and she wanted to request a meeting. However, what she said next was the last thing I had been expecting.

"There isn't much time," she said lowly and quickly. "Victoria is going to attack us tonight on three different fronts. I have no idea where she's getting the man power from, but she must have a fucking army," she said and I sucked in a surprised breath. Alice Cullen didn't strike me as the kind to swear. "Jasper and Bella are out in the woods about fifty miles north of our house. Victoria is going to attack them there," she explained. "Carlisle is traveling in a car with Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett. They'll be ambushed on the highway about ten miles from town. Normally, they could take care of themselves, but Rosalie is injured and she can't fight. Emmett will be too preoccupied trying to protect her to do any good. I can't see what happens to them. I just know that Edward and I have to stay here because more are coming for us and, if we leave the house, Stella, Eben, and Beau will die."

"How do you know all of this?" I asked, stunned.

"I see the future," Alice explained. "And if we don't do something right now, Victoria is going to win."

"Shit," I mumbled, rubbing my forehead, fully aware that Renee was watching every move I made. I knew that the pack wouldn't like protecting the Cullens, but I also knew that if Victoria had enough vampires to support three separate attacks we would need the Cullens in order to protect not only our own people, but all of Forks. "I'll split the pack," I whispered into the phone, hoping Renee couldn't hear me. "Stay with Stella, Eben, and Beau. We'll protect everyone else."

"Hurry," Alice said urgently. "This is happening in less than ten minutes."

"We're on it," I said, quickly ending the call. I handed the phone back to a very confused looking Renee.

"What's going on?" She asked as I started toward the door.

My heart was pounding, every muscle in my body firing, ready to transform, ready to run, ready to fight. "Nothing," I lied, gritting my teeth. "Everything's fine." I was out of the hospital before she could say anything else, sprinting toward the woods, ripping off my shirt and pants. As soon as I transformed, I told Quil to stay at the hospital in case any of the vampires went after Charlie. Then I split up the pack, ignoring their protests. Seth, Jared, and I ran straight for the highway, while Jake, Leah, Embry, and Paul plunged into the woods.

…………………………

_Alice POV_

"Edward," I said, placing my hands squarely on his shoulders, which was rather difficult given our height difference. "You have to listen to me now."

"What is it?" He snapped anxiously. He had heard my conversation with Sam, he knew that Bella was in danger, but as much as he wanted to run to help her, I knew that the three humans sleeping upstairs would be dead by morning if he left.

"Stella, Eben, and Beau mean a great deal to Bella," I said firmly, but quickly. "She loves them very much. If anything happens to them, she'll be devastated."

"I have to go help her," he said frantically, trying to pull away from me.

"No!" I shouted, tightening my grip on him. "You have to stay here, Edward, or they'll die. I won't be able to protect them on my own."

"But Bella," he said, his eyes wild as he stared out of the back door, willing himself to see her somewhere in the trees. I knew that in his mind he was already running toward her.

There were things that Edward didn't need to know, things I was blocking him from reading in my mind. I'd had a vision of Jasper and Bella being attacked by Victoria, of Carlisle and the others being attacked, and of us being attacked, but I had only seen the outcome of one of those fights – our own. I knew that Edward and I would hold off the vampires until dawn, when they would retreat, frustrated, to regroup several hundred miles outside of town. However, when I thought about Jasper and Bella, all I could see was blackness and, when I thought about Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett, all I could see was blackness. I didn't know what was going to happen to them, I was totally in the dark, but Edward didn't need to know that.

So I lied to him. "Edward," I said, looking him straight in the eye, never wavering. "Bella is going to be fine. I've seen it. She'll be fine. She and Jasper will hold Victoria off and be back by morning. Jasper's my mate and Bella's my best friend, Edward," I said, fighting the anguish that threatened to tremble in my voice, "I would never leave them alone to die, to suffer. They'll be fine, _she'll_ be fine." But I knew in my heart that they wouldn't be. I couldn't see Bella's future or Jasper's future anymore, I couldn't see any of their futures, but I knew that I couldn't let Edward leave either. As much as I wanted to run to Jasper, to try to save him, just like Edward wanted to run to Bella, we had three humans entrusted to our care upstairs who would die without us and we couldn't just leave them.

"Go upstairs and wake the humans," I instructed as I moved toward the garage. Edward stood perfectly still, staring out of the backdoor. "Edward!" I yelled and he jumped, looking over at me. "Now!" I said. Finally, he nodded and sprinted up the stairs. In the garage, I quickly found the three things I saw that we would need – two blow torches and a chainsaw. Pausing in the doorway, I looked over at the empty spot where Jasper's car would have been sitting in only a few short days, after he'd had it towed here from the house in Montana. A sob ripped from my chest before I could stop it and I collapsed to the ground. Everything was falling apart, everyone I loved was in danger, Jasper and my best friend, my sister, would be fighting for their lives, my family would be fighting, and I couldn't see any of it. I had never felt more helpless in my life.


	27. The Fight, Part One

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Fight, Part One:

_Stella POV_

We were awoken by Edward bursting into the bedroom. All three of us had fallen asleep on a large king-sized bed, supposedly Alice and Jasper's, practically the moment our heads hit the pillows, still dressed in what we had been wearing when we left the hotel in Alaska. I knew it was too early to be woken up because my head still felt fuzzy when I opened my eyes and tried my best to glare at the vampire that was standing over us looking entirely panicked. I wanted to crack some kind of joke, or throw a pillow at him, but his eyes told me that something important and terrifying was about to happen. "Edward?" I asked, mentally bracing myself for what was coming. It was impossible that something else could have gone wrong; yet, I knew it had and, despite how drained I was, I steeled myself, drawing from some source of strength I didn't even know I had.

"They're coming," he announced, his voice straining against an emotion I couldn't identify right away.

"Who's coming?" Beau asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Victoria," Edward replied. "And others."

"Others?" Eben asked. He was already on his feet, looking much more alert than Beau or I. He always had been able to function on very little sleep. I supposed that was the cop in him.

"Vampires from Barrow," Edward said, grimacing at the look of horror that crossed all of our faces. Whatever fogginess had been clinging to my brain was gone now. I felt like someone had slapped me in the face.

"But how?" I asked, shocked, the strength that had reinvigorated me suddenly fleeing from my body, leaving me limp. It was all just too much.

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head and angrily brushing his hand through his perpetually messy hair. "I don't know anything."

"Where are Bella and Jasper?" Beau asked.

"They'll be fine," he said evasively, his jaw set too tightly, and I knew that there was something that he wasn't telling us. I finally realized what it was that lingered in his voice – fear. He was terrified. Something was happening that was beyond his control. The woman he loved was in danger and he couldn't go to her, for whatever reason, and it was killing him.

"Edward…what's going to happen to them?" I asked, but Alice interrupted before he could answer. She came bounding up the stairs and into the room carrying a chainsaw and two blow torches. A nauseas feeling crept into my stomach.

"Okay," she said cheerily, "gather round, humans."

"What's she doing?" Beau whispered over to Eben as we shuffled around her.

"I have no idea," he whispered back.

"In less than five minutes," she said, handing me and Eben blow torches, while passing Beau the chainsaw, "some vampires will be coming to the house."

"Edward informed us," I said.

"They want to kill you," she continued without missing a beat. "We're going to make sure that doesn't happen, but we may need you to help us out."

"Help you out?" I asked warily, glancing down at the blow torch in my hand. I had a horrible feeling about this.

"Yes," Alice said, bobbing her head. "You're going to have to fight."

We all stared at her blankly for several long moments. "Well, this just sucks," Beau finally muttered.

"How many vampires are we talking about here?" Eben asked.

"And why are we fighting? Shouldn't we be hiding?" I added.

"As long as we all stick together, we should be just fine," Alice said confidently. "There's nowhere to run that they won't find us. It's too late for that now anyway. Our best option is to make a stand here and fight them off."

"Should be just fine?" I asked.

"Well," she said hesitantly, "it's looking good for now."

"For now?" I asked, looking over at Edward. "What does she mean for now?"

He smiled as reassuringly as he could under the circumstances. "Everything will be fine," he said, but the truth was in his eyes, not his words.

Silence fell between us as we all stared at each other. There was so much Alice wasn't saying, but there wasn't any time to ask. She and Edward heard them first. They probably smelled them coming. They stiffened only moments before we heard the front door slam open, wood splintering as it broke off its hinges and flew into the foyer. "Remember," Alice said, "don't leave the group."

With that, she and Edward moved forward, blocking the doorway, while we stayed huddled together behind them. "Someday, this will all just be a very bad dream," Eben promised.

Their footsteps hit the stairs. They weren't even trying to be quiet; no, it seemed like they were trying to make as much noise as they could. We heard them snarling before we saw them and the sound echoing down the hallway was like a dozen bears all roaring at once. I took a deep breath and put my finger on the button that would ignite the fire. "Someday, when we're very old, maybe we'll get lucky and forget everything that's ever happened to us," I shot back.

"We can only hope," Eben replied, smiling over at me.

"Well," Beau said just as the vampires hit the top of the stairs and came into view. "I don't know about you guys, but I think I got the coolest weapon." The chain saw roared to life, kicking back in his hands, though he kept a firm grip on it. "Come on, motherfuckers," he yelled. "We kicked your ass in Barrow, we'll kick your ass here."

I didn't have the heart to remind him that we hadn't really kicked much ass in Barrow. Bella had been the one doing most of the ass kicking, while the rest of us watched in awe. The vampires rushed toward Alice and Edward, the sound of them smacking into the two Cullens standing in the doorway was like boulders falling down a mountain, but they barely moved an inch. For a moment, I truly believed that Alice and Edward would be able to hold the door, that none of the vampires would be able to get through. Then the windows smashed behind us. Turning, I saw four vampires standing only a few feet away, their red eyes burning into us. "Oh shit," I muttered, the words barely escaping my mouth before they were moving toward us, so fast they seemed to blur into one.

……………………………

_Esme POV_

They rammed into the car before we knew what was happening. Carlisle fought against the wheel as the car started spinning, but the momentum was too much. "What's going on?" I heard Emmett yell from the backseat, but none of us really knew, not until we saw the first one. I was grabbing my seat, looking over at my husband, when something ripped my door off of its hinges. My eyes darted over, catching the gaze of a red-eyed vampire clinging to the side of the car, smiling at me with blood dripping from his lips. I shuddered, knowing where that blood had come from and wondering what poor human had been sacrificed to feed his lust for blood. When he grabbed me and started pulling, I was so surprised I didn't start fighting back until he had me halfway out of the car. By then, it was too late. I landed on the road, rolling several yards, my clothes tearing and singing from the friction. Had I been human, I surely would have been dead.

Before I could stand, three others were on me, biting at my skin and ripping at my arms. Everything was moving so quickly, I couldn't keep up with it all. I heard the car screech to a stop. I heard Carlisle yelling for me. I even heard Emmett snarling and growling as another group of vampires advanced on the car, eying Rosalie, easily the weakest member of our party. Despite the danger that I was in, I couldn't help but worry more about my family. Only a matter of several yards separated us, but I felt like they were miles away from me. I wondered where Alice, Edward, and Bella were and if they were alright. I didn't feel the pain, not right away. It wasn't until I saw my arm being thrown into the road that I realized it had been ripped off of my body. The pain came quickly then, overwhelming all of my other senses. The vampire behind me grabbed me around the waist, and, despite how hard I kicked and struggled, he wouldn't let go. I felt his teeth puncture my neck and I knew it was over. After all of these years, I was going to die.

I couldn't stop the scream that ripped free from my throat, but just as I heard an accompanying roar of anguish from Carlisle, something else caught my attention. A piercing howl hit the night air and the vampires around me stiffened, the one biting through my neck suddenly pulling away and staring into the blackness surrounding the road. A flash of something passed in front of me and the vampire behind me was gone. I fell to my knees, clutching my neck with my hand, and looked toward the road. Right on the center line, a gigantic, black wolf was tearing into the vampire, shredding him apart. Pieces of flesh and bone splattered against the road, the wet smacking sounds making me sick to my stomach.

I knew I had to find my arm and reattach it, but I couldn't take my eyes away from the wolf. It wasn't until something soft and furry brushed against me that I was able to force my eyes away from the spectacle of the wolf fighting the vampire. Another wolf, smaller than the first, with a sandy-colored coat was standing next to me, my arm dangling loosely in his mouth. He stared at me, his eyes full of intelligence and what seemed like compassion. Finally, he nudged me again with his head, and dropped the arm next to me.

"Thank you," I murmured, lifting it up and placing it against my shoulder. Almost instantly, I could feel the muscles starting to reattach. It would be a few hours before I could use it again, probably a day or two before it felt totally normal. The vampire that had ripped me from the car stepped forward, gnashing his teeth at me, but the wolf stood his ground. Snarling low in the back of his throat, his fur standing on end, he rooted himself next to me, unwilling to move, unwilling to surrender.

I was completely amazed. We'd had the treaty with the Quileutes for some time, a treaty that protected us from each other, but I never imagined that I would see the day when a Quileute wolf willingly protected a vampire. I glanced over at the car, gauging how well the rest of my family was faring, and I was surprised to see yet a third wolf fighting alongside of them. It seemed as though as quickly as they'd come, the vampires that had attacked us faded into the darkness, their red eyes lingering in the forest as they backed away. Finally, when we couldn't see them anymore, the black wolf trotted into the forest and emerged a few moments later as a half-clothed young man. He walked over to me, waiting for Carlisle, Rosalie, Emmett, and the other wolf to join us.

"Hello," he said. "I'm not sure if you know me. My name's Sam."

"Esme," I replied, offering him my hand.

He took it reluctantly, grimacing at how cold it felt. "Carlisle," he said, acknowledging my husband.

Carlisle nodded to him, turning his attention to me. "Are you alright?" He asked, examining my arm. His fingers were trembling.

"I'm fine," I said reassuringly, laying my hand on top of his. "I'll be as good as new soon enough."

"We can't thank you enough for your help," he said, turning back to the Quileute boy, but never breaking contact with me.

"One of your kind called me," Sam explained. "Alice."

"Oh," Carlisle replied, confused.

"She said she saw you getting attacked and asked us to help," Sam continued.

"Why didn't she come herself?" Emmett questioned. Rosalie was leaning against him, looking frightened and exhausted.

"You aren't the only ones in danger," Sam said gravely. "I sent half of the pack to help Bella and one called Jasper."

"And Edward and Alice?" Rosalie asked. I closed my eyes, trying to will away the awful news that Sam was relaying. My family was in danger and there was nothing I could do to help any of them.

"They're at your house protecting your humans," Sam said.

"From whom?" Carlisle asked.

"Victoria," Sam replied. "She's orchestrated this whole thing, at least, that's what Alice believes."

"Where should we go?" Emmett asked. "Who do we help?"

Carlisle was silent for several moment. Finally, he spoke. "Edward and Alice will be too distracted trying to protect the humans to fight effectively," he reasoned. "We should go to them."

"We'll join the rest of the pack," Sam announced. But turning to the sandy-colored wolf, he said, "Go with them." The wolf dashed into the forest and emerged as an even younger looking boy. "This is Seth."

"We should go," Seth said anxiously. "Alice and Edward have been on their own for a while now."

"I agree," Carlisle said. "Thank you again for everything," he added, turning gratefully to Sam, who simply nodded. He and the third wolf were gone before we could blink. "Will you be okay riding in the car with us?" Carlisle asked, looking over at Seth. "Usually, we would run, but one of our number was wounded in Alaska."

"I'm not totally incapacitated," Rosalie grumbled as Emmett led her back to the car.

"As long as you can put up with my smell, I can put up with yours," Seth said good-naturedly. We all piled back into the car, just after Carlisle set fire to the dead vampires, not even trying to hide the body or the smoke in our haste, the ride noticeably less quiet with the passenger door missing. The car shot forward into the night, Carlisle pushing it to its top speed. I had no idea how Alice intended to keep Stella, Eben, and Beau safe. I only hoped we reached them in time.


	28. The Fight, Part Two

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Note:

Sorry the chapters have been a little shorter lately. But between classes starting back up and work, I have less time, so I'm stretching this fight over several chapters instead of piling it all into one.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Fight, Part Two:

_Jasper POV_

"Bella," I growled between clenched teeth as I crouched in front of her, flexing my fingers, warily eying the two vampires so casually approaching us, as though I was a hissing kitten. "Who is the other vampire?" I asked. I knew she recognized him, I felt a flash of awareness pass through mind before it was consumed with fear. Something about the man standing next to Victoria terrified her to her very bones, but I couldn't understand why. He looked like any other vampire to me.

"John Riis," she answered slowly. I glanced at her, dismayed to find her hugging herself and trembling, backing inch by inch away from me and the vampires strolling toward us. "I killed him in Barrow." My eyebrows shot up at that, but before I could form a question, she continued. "He got turned into a vampire and he came after Eben, so I beheaded him."

"Worked out real well, didn't it?" John chimed in, his voice mocking, his lips curling up into a sarcastic smile, his white teeth glittering.

"You didn't burn him," I stated.

"No," Bella replied softly, squeezing her eyes shut, as though she was trying to will away a nightmare. "We couldn't risk attracting the others."

"Probably a risk you should have taken," Victoria added, grinning smugly. They came to a stop about twenty feet away from me, watching us, relishing Bella's reaction to their presence.

"Oh God," Bella murmured, releasing the grip she had on her midsection as she raised her fingers to her temples and started rubbing. "I feel like I'm going to throw up," she said.

"You know," Victoria said, absently playing with a strand of her red hair, "I originally planned to drain you in front of Edward, make him watch as the light slowly died in your eyes, all the while knowing that it was his fault that you were gone. But this is just so much better," she said enthusiastically. "Now I get to rip you apart, limb by limb, and set fire to each little piece. I bet," she said, leaning in and whispering conspiratorially, "that Edward, Alice, and those little humans you have stashed away at that big house of yours will be able to hear Bella screaming all the way out here. That is," she amended, "if they aren't dead by the time I'm finished with you two."

"What?" I asked, panic shooting through me, tensing my muscles.

"Did you honestly think I'd come here with just John boy for company?" Victoria asked. "Oh no, honey, I brought a whole army with me this time."

"Alice," I whispered, anguished, as I looked back at Bella. Though Alice and Edward were strong, I knew they would be distracted trying to protect the Stella, Eben, and Beau. If anything happened to my wife, I didn't know what I would do. I couldn't live without her, just like I knew that Bella couldn't live without Edward, not anymore.

Bella's red eyes met my topaz ones and something inside of her shifted. The fear that had been pouring off of her stopped, a new emotion radiating out of her stilled heart – anger. She gazed through me, her eyes meeting Victoria's, and the red head's smile faltered. She could see the rage building inside of Bella, newborn rage, the hardest to control. "Fuck you, Victoria," she spat, taking a step forward, joining me. She didn't crouch; rather, she held herself confidently, tall, staring down the vampires in front of her without any fear anymore. "I'm going to make you beg, bitch." Bella wasn't afraid of John Riis, she wasn't afraid for us, she was angry because Alice was in danger, she was angry because she had just started to reconcile with Edward and someone was trying to tear them apart again.

Victoria hid her anxiety quickly, but I felt it none the less. However, a mischievous gleam came into her eyes and she laughed. "Oh, Bella," she said. "I don't think you'll get the chance."

"Why not?" Bella asked, her voice wavering, her confidence waning. She didn't know that she had struck a nerve in Victoria, she didn't know that she had scared her, she couldn't feel it like I could.

"Because you won't get anywhere near me," she answered simply.

I probably should have smelled them earlier, but I'd been too distracted thinking of Alice, Edward, and Bella. Before I knew it, we were surrounded by ten vampires. Some of them I recognized from the fight in Barrow, vampires that had escaped into the night as we burned the bodies of their dead comrades. Others I didn't recognize, but I assumed that they had been created by Victoria. They all watched her, waiting for her signal, her command. "Well, shit," Bella murmured.

Reaching over, I took her hand and smiled at her. "It's okay," I said, calming, too calmly, and I wondered where the peace had come from that settled on my mind.

"Alice and Edward," she whispered, pained, her eyes flashing sadly.

"They'll be fine," I whispered back.

"How do you know that?" She asked as the vampires circled closer, growling and chomping their teeth at us.

"Alice can see the future and Edward can read minds," I replied. "They'll be fine. We'll be fine. Just stick with me."

"Jasper…," she said, but trailed off. The vampires formed a ring around us, Victoria and John Riis watching from outside of the circle.

She didn't have to finish, I knew what she was going to say. "I know you're afraid, so am I, but I won't let anything happen to you. I love you, little sister," I said, trying to express with my eyes everything that Bella had ever meant to me and my family.

Whatever she was going to say in response was lost. Victoria waved her hand dismissively at us and the vampires lunged. There were so many, I couldn't distinguish between them. They slashed and ripped into me and I could feel the venom and blood oozing out of wounds all over my body. I fought back as best I could, struggling to keep my grasp on Bella's hand, to keep myself anchored in reality through the comfort of her touch, but I could feel her fingers starting to slip through mine. Growling, I clasped them tighter, glancing wildly over at her, watching as I lost her face in the mob, a strangled cry ripping from my throat when her fingers were suddenly yanked from my grasp, cold air touching my palm, just before half of my vision went black.

………………………

_Bella POV_

I couldn't stop the wave of despondency that crashed through me when I felt Jasper's hand slide through my own. The vampires were pushing and pulling at me. I could feel teeth nipping at me, slashing into my skin. Blood and venom started running down my arms, down my neck, dribbling everywhere, staining the grass dark red, so dark it almost look black. I wanted to drop into a little ball on the ground and click my heels until I found myself laying in bed in Charlie's house with Edward, waking up to find him smiling down at me, laughing when my stomach rumbled, making me blush. So many times had I glossed over those little domestic moments when I should have been paying more attention, so many times had I absently eaten something without taking the time to truly enjoy it like I should have, so many times had I just flopped into bed without relishing the slow decline of sleep, the sweet lethargy of the moment just before darkness.

Teeth bit into my cheek, suddenly tearing me from the self-pity I had momentarily fallen into. I cried out in pain, staring wide-eyed at the chunk of flesh that went sailing through the air, a chunk of my own face. The sting of another vampire's venom mixing with my own prompted me to action, my sense of self-preservation finally kicking in. I started fighting back, lashing out at anything I could lay my hands on, even though I had five vampires all coming at me at once.

An arm popped off in my hands when I pulled at something and a wail of pain broke through the night. I tossed the arm aside, biting the first vampire I saw, sinking my teeth into his neck, but before I shred into him, I found myself being lifted off the ground. For a moment, I felt like I was in a mosh pit, being carried along by the crowd toward the stage. However, that moment quickly passed and I was flying through the air. The air whooshed out of my lungs when my back collided with a tree. A sickening snap echoed through the woods and I knew that, if I had been human, my spine would have been shattered. As it was, the tree split through the middle, toppling over, landing on another tree and taking it down. I fell to the ground in a mangled heap of limbs, my face buried in the grass. Groaning, I rolled over onto my back, surprised at the pain I felt shooting through my entire body. The Cullens had always seemed invincible to me, as though nothing could ever hurt them, and while practically nothing could kill them, I was quickly learning that pain wasn't something they were immune to. They felt it just like every other creature, it just took more force to inflict it.

I was aware Jasper was fighting for his life, I knew that Edward and Alice were fighting for theirs back at the house, I also realized that the vampires who had been attacking me were rushing over to where I had landed, but I couldn't make myself get up. Somewhere outside of the fray, John Riis and Victoria were watching, gloating no doubt that everything that they had planned was coming off so swimmingly. Just when I started to lose hope again, just when I started to wish for death, for an end to all of the pain and anguish I had been feeling since Barrow, just when I wanted a little peace for once instead of the constant violence that seemed to surround me, something large, brown, and furry leapt over top of me.

One moment I was laying on my back, looking up into the sky, the next moment my whole vision was filled when the image of a russet-colored wolf sailing through the air. I turned my head, watching him in amazement as he slammed into the wall of vampires approaching me. Howls broke out all around me and I scrambled to my feet, suddenly aware that there wasn't just one wolf in the woods, there were four. "Holy shit," I murmured, retreating until my back hit a tree. I had no idea what was going on. The Quileute wolves were supposed to be our enemies; yet, they were attacking the vampires that had ambushed us with abandon, avoiding Jasper and I, as though they were protecting us. They formed a line in front of me, advancing with snapping jaws, driving the vampires back further into the woods until they charged, all leaping at once, so gracefully, yet so viciously.

Jasper found me again, taking my face between his hands and eying me over cautiously, carefully avoiding the open wound on my cheek that was slowly and painfully starting to heal. "You okay?" He asked. I cringed when my eyes focused on him. A large slash covered half of his face and I was certain that he couldn't see out of his right eye.

I could only nod, turning my head to watch with a strange mixture of horror and fascination as the wolves tore into the vampires, ripping them apart, pieces of chilled flesh flying through the air. In the midst of it all, my eyes landed on Victoria and I knew what I had to do. She would never leave me alone until one of us was dead. She would keep coming, threatening Charlie, hovering over us, a constant reminder that the quiet and happiness surrounding us were only transitory, until someone finally stopped her. _I_ had to be that someone. This was my fight, not Edward's, not Jasper's. I had to be the one to face Victoria and, though it scared me, I somehow felt like my life had been building up to this moment, when I would take my life into my own hands and defend it, fight for it, for everything that I loved and wanted, for my family, for Edward, so we could finally have peace, so we could finally just _live. _Without realizing what I was doing, I found myself walking toward her, our eyes locked, and with each step, I shed a little bit of Bella Swan, the uncoordinated human girl that still plagued my mind with self-doubt, and I became more and more someone else, someone new, someone Charlie and Renee would have been proud of, the woman, the _vampire_, I was meant to become.


	29. In Which Alice's Visions Fail Again

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Note: I didn't really want to do this, but the muses left me no choice. I am but a puppet to their will.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: In Which Alice's Visions Fail Again:

_Alice POV_

Sometimes, my visions would come at worst times, like when Edward and I were trying desperately to hold the door to the bedroom from an army of newborns, while Eben, Stella, and Beau were each fighting their own somewhat losing battles against the vampires that had burst in through the window. Just as I was about to sink my teeth into the neck of a vampire that had made the mistake of straying too close to my darting hands, I froze, my eyes glazed over, and images starting assaulting my brain at speeds that would put a computer to shame. I barely registered Edward shoving me out of the way, I think to protect me, though he might have done it out of irritation.

At first, I didn't realize that it was a vision because the images were so similar to what was already happening I couldn't distinguish the present reality from the transitory future. It was only until I felt that familiar loss of control, an out of body experience, that I realized I wasn't in the present anymore, but somewhere else. Even though I was proud of my ability, it sometimes terrified me. The visions weren't always negative; no, sometimes they were quite pleasant. I had seen many good things happen to my family, to me, to the people around me, but I has also seen many horrible things that might have come to pass and some that truly had. Most of those things I could push out of my mind, forget, but some I could _never_ forget, some things, like that one flash of Edward holding a baby girl that I knew would now never happen.

The burden of seeing was something I didn't have to bear alone because Edward usually saw what I saw, just as it was happening, unless I blocked him. It was comforting to know that someone else could share my pain and I often wished that I could share Edward's. Hearing the minds of everyone around him had isolated him for so long. I knew that he suffered, but I don't think he quite knew how much I suffered, though perhaps Jasper did. He always looked so concerned after my visions, as though perhaps he felt how lost I would become. For those few moments when the vision choose to manifest itself, when I was but a puppet to the images careening across my brain, I truly stopped existing. I was no longer Alice, wife of Jasper, daughter to Carlisle and Esme, best friend to Bella Swan, sister to Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward. I became a vessel, an empty jar into which something higher than myself had decided to pour things no one should have ever been able to see.

The vision I had now was not pleasant, not at all. I was in the bedroom and the humans were standing behind us. The fire from the blow torches made the room seem hotter, something I could feel even though the flames weren't directed at Edward and I. I could smell the smoke, a dirty kind of smell that made me want to wrinkle my nose, and I could hear the chainsaw that Beau was wielding shredding into something, a vampire, who started keening loudly. It was a horrible sound, even though it meant that one of our enemies was dying, because I could image something similar issuing from Bella's throat, or Jasper's, somewhere else, in the woods, far away from where Edward or I could help. My eyes landed on the three humans and I realized what was about to happen even before I saw it in my vision. The vampire being shredded was thrashing wildly, desperately trying to grab Beau, but he couldn't reach him because he was trying to extract himself from the saw blade at the same time. However, the moment he made his decision, the moment I was now seeing, something brightened in his eyes and he stopped howling. Instead of struggling, he pulled himself forward, thrusting the blade even further into his body, until he saw standing only inches from Beau, face to face, their eyes gazing into each other's. Then he bit.

"No!" I screamed, the vision abruptly leaving, and I was suddenly back in my body again. I heard the keening howl and I knew it was too late. Just as my eyes found Beau, the vampire ripped into his neck. I was across the room in a second, pulling the vampire away, pushing him into the flame of the blow torch that Stella had directed toward him. Beau crumbled to the ground, holding his neck, his eyes wide, shock written all over his features. The chainsaw was lying next to him, roaring out of control until Eben dropped his blow torch and grabbed it, just before it was about to start eating into Beau's foot.

"Shit, shit shit," I murmured, moving over to Beau's side just as he started screaming. The venom was working through his system and he gritted his teeth to block the unnatural sounds issuing from his mouth, but he couldn't stop the little whimpers. "It's okay," I said, trying to hold him down to keep him from hurting himself. "Everything's going to be okay."

"I'm gonna be one of them, aren't I?" He growled out between his clenched teeth, sweat starting to dot his skin.

"No," I said firmly, looking into his panic-stricken eyes. "You're not going to be one of _them_. You're going to be one of _us._"

"Alice!" Edward shouted back at me. "I could use a little help here."

Before I could answer him, another vision burst into my brain, a constellation of stars illuminating an otherwise black night, and my words came out in a startled gasp. I saw them coming, my family, to rescue us. "Thirty seconds," I murmured when the vision faded.

"What?" Edward asked in confusion, his words tinged with pain. One of the vampires had bit into his arm.

"Thirty more seconds and they'll be here," I said, counting down in my mind. "We will win this battle."

"Who's coming?" Edward asked.

"The cavalry," Emmett said, jumping in through the window, a wide grin on his face, his eyes sparkling. He cracked his knuckles. "Who should I kill first?" He asked and I had never been happier to see his dimpled face. Carlisle and Esme appeared right behind him, Rosalie struggling through the window after. Despite her weakened condition, she looked fierce, though I wondered how much good she would do in the fight.

Carlisle immediately came to my side and we turned our attention back to Beau. Dimly, I was aware of the others fighting around me, of the piercing screams of the vampires being torn apart, of the sickly sweet smell of burning, but I didn't care much about that anymore. We would prevail, that much I knew for certain, after all, I had seen it. "How is he?" I murmured over to Carlisle.

"He's started making the transition," Carlisle replied, his hand on Beau's wrist, timing his pulse. "Beau," he said, turning his attention to the man writhing next to him. "The venom is spreading through your body. There is only one way to stop it now, it's moving too quickly. I would have to kill you to prevent the transformation. You have a choice to make."

Beau groaned as a fresh wave of pain shot through him. "If Bella can do this, so can I. I don't want to die," he said, his voice ringing with conviction.

"We'll need to remove him from Forks," Carlisle said thoughtfully, turning back to me.

"You should take him to Denali," I said, "while we wrap up loose ends here."

"I agree," Carlisle replied. "Esme and I can take him. I think Bella will want to remain behind until Charlie wakes up. I assume you will want to stay with her?" He asked, looking sideways over at me.

"I'm never leaving her again," I said solemnly, nodding. "Once she's ready to say good-bye to Forks, we'll join you."

"That's settled then," Carlisle replied. "The transition should take three days," he added, turning back to Beau. "You will be in immense pain until the very end. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that. Once you awaken as a vampire, you will be extremely thirsty. However, I'm confident that you will be able to adapt to our way of life."

I noticed that Eben and Stella were standing over Beau now, their weapons discarded on the ground, both looking anxious. It was then that I realized I couldn't hear anymore fighting. Glancing around, I saw my family throwing body parts out of the window. Emmett had made a fire outside and he was burning the remains of our attackers. Esme quickly moved over to us, her eyes locked on Carlisle, waiting for instruction, while Rosalie lingered against the wall, her hands on her knees, fighting the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her.

"Well?" Esme asked.

"He has decided to become a part of our family," Carlisle said. "We are going to remove him to Denali until he has adjusted to our way of life."

"You should leave now," I said to Carlisle as Stella and Eben both knelt down next to him.

"It's okay," Beau murmured when Stella took his hand.

"Don't worry," she replied, furtively wiping away a tear. "The Cullens will take good care of you. You're gonna be a scary vampire, Beau," she added, laughing a rather sad laugh.

"Hang in there, buddy," Eben chimed in, clapping him on the shoulder, but quickly removing his hand when Beau winced in pain. "Sorry," he murmured. "We'll see you again soon." Carlisle easily lifted Beau from the ground, despite his size, and jumped from the broken window, Esme quickly embracing me before following after him. I could hear the car roar to life and the crunch of the tires as it shot down the driveway.

"Well, that's done," Emmett said, leaping back through the window and brushing off his hands on his pants.

"Alice," Edward said, turning back to me with dark eyes. "What about Bella and Jasper?"

"Go," Rosalie said. "Alice and I can take care of the humans. You and Emmett go." They didn't need to be told twice, both men darting off into the night without so much as a reply. As much as I wanted to run to Jasper, I knew that Emmett needed to go instead. He had vowed to protect Bella, just as Edward had, and neither man wanted to break his promise. I still couldn't see what would happen to Bella and Jasper, a black void mocking me silently from within my own mind, but I chose not to dwell on that and busied myself instead to tending to Rosalie, Eben, and Stella, half of me talking with them, half of me running through the night toward something I couldn't see.


	30. Realizations

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Thirty: Realizations:

_Bella POV_

Until my fight with Victoria, my experiences as a newborn vampire had been what some might call atypical. The bloodlust that so routinely enslaved newborns hadn't touched _me_ in the same way. I thirsted for blood, as all vampires do, some people's more than others as I had come to find out, but that thirst was something I could control. I shouldn't have been able to ride in a car with Stella, Eben, and Beau and yet I had not only ridden in a car with them, but breathed the same air, spoken to them, and taken comfort from them. I could stand in a hospital, surrounded by bleeding patients, and ironically, the only real temptation I had felt was from my own mother. Though the volatility of newborn emotions had been playing havoc with my mind, and some of my personal relationships, I hadn't until that moment, staring at Victoria, seeing the smug smile cruelly twisting up her lips, really experienced good, proper newborn rage, although Edward had provoked something similar on occasion.

But I felt it now, coursing through my veins, making me so much stronger than I really was. The only thing that stopped me from launching myself straight at her was that knowledge – my strength, my rage, was all illusory. I was stronger than Victoria, yes, but I wasn't better. I hadn't spent years fighting and surviving in the wild as she had and I didn't know what it took to be a good fighter, not as a vampire, not really even as a human. She could sense my hesitation and as she circled around me, moving ever closer, taunting me with every word and breath, I knew she thought that she would kill me. She was too confident, that was her flaw, and I thought my advantage was that I could see it. I didn't realize until later what my advantage truly was.

"Bella, Bella, Bella," she said, her voice laden with sarcasm, dripping with hatred. "You won't be so beautiful when I'm done with you."

I realized quickly that she was trying to provoke me. Newborn rage made vampires like John and I dangerous, but also stupid, stilted, and predictable. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, surprised to find that I was aware of so much happening around me even without my eyesight. I could hear the wolves panting, some whining under each breath in pain; I could hear their claws scratching into the earth; and I could hear the wet, slapping sound of living flesh being beaten and the dull, grating sound of vampire flesh tearing and ripping. The breeze moving through the trees made a sound that was different from the breeze hitting against my cheek, or rustling Victoria's clothing. Each vampire smelled different, each wolf smelled different, and though their smells made me want to wrinkle my nose at first, I noticed that there was an underlying musky, earthy scent that was somewhat pleasant.

"What do you think Edward will do when he realizes that you're dead?" Victoria asked. She was closer now, I could feel her breath, I could hear the snap of leaves and twigs under her feet. I opened my eyes and looked over at her; she was standing five feet away, her arms crossed over her chest, her hair a halo of red spilling around her head. "You know, each vampire smells a little different in the fire. I wonder what you'll smell like when you burn?"

"Hopefully something nice," I shot back. "Like marshmallows." I smiled, newborns weren't the only ones who did stupid things when they were angry. "I surprised you're going to all this trouble for James. After all, it's funny how much he wanted _me_, seeing how he was _your_ mate."

Her grin dropped into a scowl, her eyes narrowing into slits. "You were just a game to him, a snack."

"A snack he risked his life for," I countered. "A snack he left you for."

She started circling me again and I mimicked her movements, slowly walking in the other direction, my eyes locked on hers. Everything around me faded away. I knew that John and Jasper were fighting and that Jasper was winning. I knew that the wolves had herded the other vampires into the forest, but they were starting to lose control of them. I could smell the rusty tinge of wolf blood and the sweet aroma of venom. But I knew if I took my eyes off of Victoria for even a second, I would be dead.

"You don't understand yet, little girl," she sneered, "because you're so new. But James and I had a connection that could never have been broken by anything, except death. It's my duty to avenge him, to kill you. You think you know what love is? You don't know anything. Wait a couple of decades, a couple generations, a century or two, maybe then you'll know. But your little, human infatuation with Edward? It was nothing compared to what James and I had."

"You're right," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "My human infatuation with Edward was nothing. It wasn't fair, it wasn't balanced, I worshiped him like a god and he treated me like a porcelain doll. The thing is though, Victoria, I'm not a little human anymore. Edward and I are equals," I pointed out. "What I can have with Edward now is so much more than you ever had with James and I won't let you take it away from me. I will fight you with everything I have and if that isn't enough, so be it, but do you really want to take that chance?" I asked.

It dawned on me that no matter how angry I was with Edward, no matter what our problems were, if I was willing to fight Victoria to defend our relationship than our relationship was worth fighting for. I couldn't be angry with him forever, even now, I loved him, even now, I wanted him. How much time was I willing to lose with him because of the past? How much of the future was I willing to give up? I was immortal, but that didn't mean that I could never die. Even now, my life was in danger and I hadn't gotten to experience what being with Edward was truly like. I didn't want to waste anymore time, I didn't want to waste anymore of my life, no matter how long it might be, and suddenly, I wanted Edward with me more than anything in the world.

Victoria's answering growl was her only response. She moved like a bolt of lightning. For a split second, I was afraid, but I clamped down on my fear, using it, channeling it, to make me move faster. I side stepped her, cracking my elbow into the back of her head. She went down on one knee, but reached out and grabbed my leg before I could spring away. I landed on my back, the air whooshing out of my lungs. Before I could move, she had grabbed a boulder and chucked it at me. It hit me square in the chest, bouncing off of me and ricocheting into a tree. The tree began to sway, limbs cracking and breaking. The wolves scrambled out of the way as it fell. It missed me by about two yards and I jumped to my feet.

She was on top of me again before I realized where she was. Her legs were locked so tightly around my waist, her fists slamming into my face so quickly, a moment of irrational panic seized me and I wondered for a second if she really would kill me. The pain of her twisting my arm in an attempt to pop it from the socket brought me out of my mind and back into the reality of the moment. Bucking my hips, I lifted her off of my body and over my head. She tumbled to the ground, leaves sticking all over her clothes and hair. This time I caught her off guard, jumping onto her back before she could turn. With one arm wrapped tightly around her neck and my legs in a pretzel around her midsection, I used my other arm to yank her head back. Sinking my teeth into her neck, I reveled in the agonized whine that erupted from her throat.

My victory didn't last long, however. She charged backward, ramming me into a tree, trying to dislodge me. Her first two attempts failed, but the third shook me loose and she turned on me quicker than I could scramble away. Now _her_ teeth were latched onto _my_ neck. Something that sounded like a screaming growl passed through my lips, but all I could focus on was the pain. It was so intense, for a moment, I felt like I was in Barrow again, hiding behind the car with Emmett. I even thought I saw his face among the trees and I wondered how much pain a vampire had to be in to hallucinate.

When her teeth suddenly left my throat and I saw her now halfway across the clearing, springing to her feet, I realized that I hadn't been hallucinating. "Emmett!" I gasped and he smiled back at me.

"What did I tell you about sticking with me, huh?" He admonished good-naturedly. "I leave you alone for a couple of days and look at all this trouble you get in."

"Yeah," I mumbled, sliding down to a sitting position with my back against the tree, holding my neck and biting my lip against the pain. "I always was a danger magnet."

"Here, let me see," a soft, velvety voice to my left said and I looked over to see Edward kneeling next to me. I felt like crying when I saw him. His eyes were filled with such concern, such love, it almost broke me. I couldn't say anything as I moved my hand away from the wound. He reached over and gently grazed it with his fingertips. "Can I?" He asked, leaning closer. I had no idea what he wanted to do, but I nodded anyway. His cheek brushed against mine and his lips found the rupture in my skin. He kissed it first and fire erupted all over my body. My heart would have been pounding out of my chest if I was still human. As it was, I had to fight against the pleasant drowning sensation being near him awakened in me. My eyes wanted to slip shut, but I forced them to stay open.

When he opened his mouth and his tongue darted across the skin of my neck, tasting me, tasting my wound, I couldn't stop the low moan that whispered through my lips. He chuckled and leaned back. I immediately wanted him close again, but I noticed that the wound hurt considerably less. "What did you do?" I asked.

"Venom has healing properties," he explained. "At least for us." The wound was still there, but it didn't sting anymore and for that I was grateful.

"Thanks," I said, smiling at him.

"You seem to be in a better mood," he commented as he helped me to my feet.

"I had an epiphany," I explained.

"Which was?" He asked.

"Life is short," I said. He looked so confused I had to laugh. "Well, I mean, short-ish."

"You're a strange girl, you know that?" He chuckled.

"I am aware," I answered.

My eyes scanned the forest, searching out Jasper and Emmett and I found them both attacking Victoria. The smoking pile of what used to be John Riis lay off to the side. Now that he was dead and Victoria was outnumbered, many of the vampires that had been fighting alongside of her had fled. The ones that hadn't were being picked off one by one, the wolves chasing them like sport. "Come on," I said, taking Edward's hand and walking over to Emmett and Jasper. Victoria was on her knees now, one of her arms removed, the other dangling at an odd angle.

I had gone into the fight thinking that the only way to prove my worth was by killing her myself. However, I realized now, as I watched Emmett and Jasper working together, that the Cullens didn't value each person in their family for what that person could do, they didn't collect family members based on skills or strength, no, they valued the group. Becoming the vampire I was meant to become didn't mean I had to win all my fights. It didn't mean I had to be stronger and faster and better than everyone else. It didn't mean that I had to be more gifted. All it meant was that I had to be one of them, one of the Cullens.

Emmett handed me a lighter and grinned. "Want to do the honors?" He asked.

Victoria was beyond talking now, half of her face ripped away, pieces of her scattered. I truly felt sorry for her in that moment. Had I been killed, Edward would have done the same thing, perhaps even gone to the same lengths, just to avenge me. Taking the lighter, I flicked it open, suddenly aware of why Carlisle had been so reluctant to kill James in the first place. A life was a life and each one had value. Still, I valued mine more. I tossed the lighter at her, the flames catching on her clothes. Her keening wail echoed around the forest and slowly died away.

Leaning into Edward's chest, I closed my eyes. I could hear the wolves transforming back into human form. They gathered behind us, not wanting to interrupt our moment. Finally, I looked up at Edward and said, "Let's go home." I expected him to smile and whisk me off my feet. What I didn't expect was the slightly guilty look that crossed his face. "What?" I asked irritably.

"Not everything is going to be exactly as you left it back home," Emmett said quickly, stepping into relieve Edward from the glare I was shooting in his direction.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"There may have been a small problem with the humans," Edward said.

"The humans?" I asked. "You mean Eben, Stella, and Beau?"

"Yeah," Emmett answered. Jasper shook his head and started walking back to the house, discussing something the wolves, who followed after him.

"What happened?" I growled, looking back and forth between them.

Emmett chuckled. "Let's just say," he hedged, "that Beau is gonna be a handful for our cousins up in Denali, especially the women."


	31. Future Plans

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Notes:

This should be wrapping up soon. Probably only a couple of chapters left.

Chapter Thirty-One: Future Plans:

_Bella POV_

The machines beeped steadily into the night, the drip from the IV a constant reminder of how broken Charlie was. I'd sent Renee and Phil back to Charlie's house to get some sleep, mostly because they looked like they needed it, but also because it was hard for me to be in the same room with my mother for any length of time anymore. The burning in the back of my throat became too intense when she was around. It was hard to forget that I was part monster when all I wanted to do was bite my own mother. Before Barrow, I'd had a rather skewed vision of what vampires really were, but my eyes were open now. Despite my ordeal with James, and the calamity that was my eighteenth birthday party, I had never quite understood just how dangerous, terrifying, and inhuman vampires were.

The Cullens had been warm, loving, and protective. If my first experience with vampires had been something different, something like Barrow, or even something like what happened with James, perhaps I wouldn't have been so eager to become one when I met Edward. Maybe I would have had a better sense of self-preservation, maybe I wouldn't have chosen him. Yet, I could never think of the man that I loved as a soulless monster like he persisted in thinking of himself. Edward had fought everyday with his bloodlust while I was human and I had known that, I had appreciated it, but deep down, I had never really understood it, not until I experienced it myself. I still didn't think of Edward as a monster, but in some ways, I couldn't help but think of myself as one.

Vampires, like humans, could rise above what they were, but at the very bottom of everything, we were just animals driven by instinct and need, which wouldn't have been so horrible if that instinct wasn't to kill human beings and that need wasn't to drink human blood. I couldn't help but feel shame every time I saw my mother and felt the similar burn of want rise up within me. Jasper could tell me how strong I was everyday for eternity, but I would never forget that if I let any weakness in, even for a moment, I had the potential to become just like the vampires that had attacked Barrow. Their red eyes would always live in my memory. My becoming had been scarred by trauma and I knew that I would carry that trauma with me forever.

I had almost forgotten about Sam sitting across the room from me until he shifted and the chair squeaked against the floor. We had to talk, that was part of the reason why we were both sitting in this room together, staring at Charlie, who was still unconscious, but neither of us had said a word yet. A tentative alliance had been formed between us and the pack since we fought together against Victoria and her newborns, but wolves and vampires were never meant to be friends. No matter how friendly we became, we had a natural aversion to each other. They were designed to kill us and we wanted nothing more than to kill them. Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as that for me. I knew Jacob Black, Billy was one of my father's best friends, and I had never been the type of person as a human to hate anyone, but even I couldn't deny that my muscles tensed every time one of the Quileutes came into the hospital room and that wet dog smell pervaded my nostrils.

I felt better knowing that Sam was suffering from my smell just as much as I was suffering from his. I wasn't usually so vindictive, but I resented Sam because he thought that I couldn't be left alone in the hospital room with my own father. Glaring at him hadn't motivated him to leave; rather, he just stared back at me with an eerily serene look on his face that only made me angrier. I had to remind myself not to give into the wild pulses of anger flowing through me. New born emotions were horrible. Yelling and cussing at Sam, or breaking my chair, wouldn't do anything more than prove his point, so I stayed put, tapping my foot every once in a while in irritation, my eyes locked on Charlie's face, willing him to open his eyes.

"Bella," Sam finally said. The sound of his voice surprised me and I jumped in my chair. He raised an eyebrow at me and chuckled, despite the scowl I shot him.

"What?" I asked angrily.

"We need to talk," he said.

"I know," I replied.

I think he realized that I wasn't going to be particularly cooperative because he sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "We need to talk about what's going to happen next."

"I'm not leaving until Charlie wakes up," I reminded him. I looked over at him, hoping he could see in my eyes how broken my heart was over Charlie. He studied my face for a few moments, then sat back in his chair.

"What about after Charlie wakes up?" He asked.

"We'll leave," I promised.

"How soon?" He asked.

"I need to make sure Charlie is okay before I go," I said hesitantly.

"The treaty with the Cullens still stands," Sam explained. "I don't quite know what to believe about how you…changed," he said.

"When I said that I did this to myself, I wasn't lying," I argued.

"Maybe," Sam said speculatively.

"It was the only way," I said, rubbing a weary hand over my face. I wished I could sleep as a vampire. I had never appreciated before how useful sleep was for forgetting unpleasant things for a while.

"If we could prove the Cullens bit you, the treaty would be broken," Sam said. "But we're not going to pursue that. Some of the elders want us to," he added. "But I don't think it's necessary. You helped us destroy the red-haired leech and her bloodsuckers. We'll call it even."

"Thanks," I mumbled dryly.

"You can't begrudge us for not liking you," Sam reminded me.

"I know…natural enemies and all that," I said dismissively.

"It's more than that," Sam replied. "The wolf gene only becomes active when vampires are in the area. If no vampires come, whole generations can pass without anyone transforming. The Cullens coming back to Forks triggered all of this for us," he explained lowly. "My life would be totally different if they had stayed away." A wistful look came into his eyes and I wondered what he was thinking about.

Then it dawned on me that the wolves didn't hate us just because of what we were, they hated us because of what we took away from them. "So you're saying that if we leave, the tribe's teenage boys will stop becoming wolves. Anyone who hasn't already will be spared from becoming like you," I concluded.

"Yes," Sam said.

"And what about you?" I asked.

"If there aren't any leeches around to threaten our people, the pack can stop transforming, we can start aging again, and we can have normal lives," he answered softly.

"I wanted a normal life once upon a time too, you know," I said.

"I know," he replied and smiled. Something passed between us in that moment, a certain understanding, and I felt all of my irritation and anger melt away until all I could feel for the man sitting across from me was compassion.

Sighing, I nodded slowly. "Once Charlie wakes up, and I know he's okay, we'll leave for good," I said. "We won't come back."

"And if you want to see Charlie again?" Sam asked.

"I suppose he'll just have to come see me," I answered with a wry smile. Sam nodded and silence fell between us again.

It wasn't until I noticed the sky had lightened that I realized we had been sitting there straight through the night. I didn't feel tired or cramped, but I knew that sitting in that chair for so long should have been painful for my muscles, so I stood and stretched out of habit. "I'm going to walk around," I said.

I paused at the threshold of the door and looked back at Sam, who had closed his eyes and was leaning his head against the wall. He must have been exhausted. I started walking down the hallway, rolling my neck and absently rubbing my legs, even though my muscles felt fine, when I heard Alice's musical voice coming from the waiting room. "I don't know when, Jazz," she was saying. "All I know is that I see us living in Alaska for a while. We'll have to order heavier winter clothing. Oh!" She added. "And some cute snow boots. This is going to be great," she said excitedly. I envisioned her bouncing in her chair, clapping her hands together. "We can have even teams in snowball fights now."

"I will not be participating in any snowball fights," I countered, smiling at them as I walked into the waiting room and leaned against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest.

"You say that now," Alice replied. "But I _know_ you'll be participating," she added, tapping the side of her head.

"And I know better than to bet against you," I said, flashing her a lazy grin. I noticed that Stella was sitting next to Alice, looking far better than she had in over a month. Her hair was curled, she was wearing designer jeans and heels, and she was clenching her fists to hide the red nail polish covering her fingernails. Chuckling, I asked sympathetically, "Did Alice give you a makeover?"

Stella rolled her eyes and nodded. "You left me alone with her," she admonished me. "I heard all about how Alice used to give you makeovers and, yet, you didn't think to spare me the humiliation of having an overly chatty vampire paint my toenails?"

"You enjoyed it," Alice grumbled.

"The first time maybe," Stella shot back.

"How many makeovers did she give you?" I asked in horror.

"Just three," Alice replied. "She has such nice hair," she added, touching one of the curls. "I couldn't help myself."

"I put my foot down when she broke out the scissors," Stella said dryly.

"You'll never know if you'll like short hair until you try," Alice retorted.

"Some of us don't like to spend hours primping in the morning," Stella replied.

I couldn't help but smile at their banter, but then I remembered what Alice had been saying when I first heard her. "So, we're going to Alaska?" I asked.

Jasper nodded. "Alice sees us living in Denali for a while."

"That's where Beau is, right?" I asked, a flash of guilt shooting through me when I thought of my burly friend.

"Stop that right now," Jasper warned. "I know what you're thinking. If it hadn't of been for you, he wouldn't have gotten bitten by a vampire. But if it hadn't of been for you, he would have died in Barrow along with everyone else."

"Valid point," Stella noted.

"Fine," I grumbled, but smiled. "Hey, Stella?" I asked. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," Stella said, rising from her chair.

We walked out into the hospital garden and stood looking at the dead shrubs for a few moments before I finally spoke again. "I've told the pack that the Cullens and I will leave Forks once Charlie wakes up." Stella nodded. "Have you and Eben talked about what you want to do?"

"We have actually," Stella replied. "You know, this last month was really something else."

"Yeah, it was," I agreed.

"The Cullens are great," Stella said. "We really like them, but we've had enough excitement for a while."

"So you won't be coming with us?" I asked. I had assumed that Stella and Eben might want to go their own way, but it still hurt to think that I wouldn't be see them much, if at all, once I left Forks.

"No," Stella smiled sadly. "We won't."

"So where will you go?" I asked.

"Actually," she said, "we want to stay right here."

"Really?" I asked in surprise.

"Charlie is family," she shrugged. "And he'll need us. I think Eben kinda needs him too, really. We've had quite a shock, finding out about vampires and all that. Not to mention seeing everyone we loved up in Barrow die in front of us. That kinda thing makes you appreciate family all the more," she said. "Besides, I'm sure the Forks police department could use another good man and I'll find something useful to do."

I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Charlie would be taken care of; I wouldn't be leaving him alone with the knowledge that everything he thought he knew about the world was a lie. He would have people around him who knew too, who would understand the world the way he understood it now. It wouldn't make up for the fact that he was losing his daughter in a way, but maybe it would be enough. It would have to be enough; it was all I had to offer. Stella and I chatted for a little while before going back into the hospital. My time in Forks was coming to an end. All I had to do was wait for Charlie to wake up.


	32. After All Is Said and Done

_30 Days of Night_

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and _30 Days of Night_ belongs to Steve Niles.

Notes: Sorry for the delay folks. Moving is quite a stressful thing and not conducive to the flow of creative energies. And I know virtually nothing about the medical field, so if anything I say down below is wrong, my apologies, I'm just going off what I've seen on ER. Also, this will be the last chapter. I wasn't planning on this being the last chapter, but it seemed to end just right, so there it is. I hope you all enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Chapter Thirty-Two: After All Is Said and Done:

_Bella POV_

Had I still been human, I wouldn't have noticed the subtle changes hinting that something was about to happen. I wouldn't have noticed that Charlie's heart sped up just a little or that his eyes started rolling faster underneath of his eyelids. I wouldn't have seen his hand curl slightly, as though he was trying to make a fist, and perhaps I wouldn't have heard his muffled choking as he tried to breathe on his own and found that he was still hooked up to the ventilator. I hit the button on the wall for the nurse and moved over to his bed, glad now that Charlie was waking up that Sam had finally decided to give us some space.

"It's okay, Dad," I said, leaning over him and smiling, hoping to God that I didn't look like a shark smiling over a struggling fish. "A nurse is coming."

His eyes were glued to my face and he nodded. He was probably wondering why I was wearing sunglasses indoors. My cover story was that I had developed sensitive eyes, but I wasn't sure how many people were buying it as most of the hospital staff had taken part in treating me for numerous injuries in the recent past. I had overheard one of the nurses gossiping about how I probably had a shiner underneath of my sunglasses and, while I was itching to correct her and clear Edward's reputation, I couldn't risk anyone noticing that my eyes were still burning red.

The nurse came in and said something that I didn't even bother listening to as she went about removing the ventilator so Charlie could breathe on his own again. "There you go, Chief Swan, that feel better?" She asked and he nodded. "Okay then. I'll be a few minutes getting the doctor," she added, looking over at me. I suppose she guessed by the way I was bouncing back and forth on my feet that I was eager to have some alone time with my father now that he was awake.

"Thanks," I said as she whisked back out of the room. Silence fell between us; there was so much to say, so much that needed to be said, so much to explain, but I didn't know how to begin. "Need anything?" I finally asked.

Charlie's eyebrows shot up when he heard my voice for the first time since I had been changed. I forgot how different it would sound to him. "Some water, maybe?" He asked. His voice sounded raw, as though he had been silently screaming ever since he lost consciousness.

I nodded and walked over to the bathroom, perhaps moving more quickly than I should have, but I was so nervous I couldn't seem to get a grip on myself. Charlie was my father and I wanted to believe that his love was unconditional, that even though I was a vampire now he would still be able to find a place in his heart for me. Yet, that little nagging voice of doubt in the back of my head kept saying over and over that he would never be able to love a monster, that I wasn't really his daughter anymore, and that there was nothing left for me in Forks. My hand shook as I filled a plastic cup with water and carried it back to him. He had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position while I was in the bathroom and he smiled gratefully when he took the cup from my hands.

I let him drink, watching the muscles in his throat move as he swallowed, listening to the steady stream of air moving in and out of his nose as he breathed. "You feeling okay?" I asked when he put the cup on the bedside table.

"A little disoriented," he answered, "but I guess that's normal."

"Yeah," I said. "Probably so." The room fell quiet again and I started to worry that I would never find the courage to say what I needed to say.

"Listen, kiddo," Charlie started, just as I opened my mouth and said, "Look, Dad."

We both paused, Charlie chuckled, and motioned for me to start. Clearing my throat needlessly, I scooted my chair closer to him and leaned my elbows on his bed. "What do you remember exactly, you know, about when you were attacked?" I asked.

Charlie smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I think I know where you're going with this."

"Humor me," I said dryly.

"Okay," he nodded. "There was a woman with red hair. She knocked on the door, said she was having car trouble and wanted to know if she could borrow my phone."

"Dad," I interrupted, rolling my eyes, even though he couldn't see it through the glasses, "please tell me you didn't fall for that."

"What?" He asked, shrugging his shoulders. "I thought it was a little funny that she didn't have a cell phone. I mean heck, all you kids have one these days, but I figured maybe she had lost it or the battery died or something. Anyway, I let her in," he continued. "She made her call and came back out into the living room to wait."

"Did she say anything?" I asked.

"She asked if I had a daughter," Charlie replied. "Of course, I said yes."

"And then?" I prompted.

Charlie looked down at his hands. "She wasn't human, was she Bells?" He asked after a moment's pause.

I blow out a breath that I didn't know I had been holding and shook my head. "No, she wasn't."

"She got pretty angry when I said your name," Charlie explained. "Start ranting about some guy named James." My stomach dropped and I couldn't help the shudder of fear that rocketed through me when I thought of the vampire that had almost killed me in Phoenix. "So you knew him, huh?" He asked, noticing my reaction.

"Yeah," I answered. "I knew him."

"Well, she had some pretty crazy ideas about what happened to him and how you were involved," Charlie said. "She said she had come looking for you, but since you weren't around, I would do just fine."

"Dad," I started, feeling more nauseous by the second, but he held up his hand, interrupting me.

"It's okay, Bells," he replied. "I would go through Hell to keep you safe. I'm glad she did all this to me and not to you." Tears pricked at my eyes again and I cursed my inability to cry. I knew that Charlie loved me and that he would do anything for me, but he wasn't a man of many words. Hearing him say how much he cared for me moved me in ways that I didn't expect. "I won't go into the details," he said quietly. "I'm sure the doctors have told you plenty."

"Yeah," I replied. "They all say you're lucky to be alive."

"Well, I probably wouldn't be if not for Jake," Charlie said.

"Right," I said, clearing my throat again. "About Jake."

"You mean about how he exploded into a wolf right in front of my eyes?" Charlie asked.

I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, about that."

"He's a….what, werewolf or something?" Charlie asked and I nodded. "And so the woman was…"

"A vampire," I supplied.

"A blood sucking, creature of the night kind of vampire?" Charlie asked.

"Blood sucking yes, creature of the night, not so much," I clarified.

"How do you know about all of this?" Charlie asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Well, you know how the Cullens are kind of…different?" I asked.

"Yeah," Charlie replied slowly.

"They're vampires too," I said. "But they only drink animal blood," I said in a rush when Charlie's eyes bugged out. "So they're perfectly safe." Charlie just stared at me and I could see the mental wheels turning in his head. He had always defended the Cullens, but now I wasn't quite so sure he would. "Dad?" I asked after several minutes had elapsed.

Charlie rubbed his chin absently and nodded. "That does explain a few things."

"You're okay with all that?" I asked.

"I can't say I like the fact that vampires are living in my town. I don't like the fact that my best friend's son can turn into a giant wolf either" Charlie replied. "But I suppose if they're, you know, good or whatever, I'm okay with it."

"Good," I said, "because there's more."

"More?" He asked tiredly.

"Yeah," I said, my throat suddenly getting dry. I clasped my hands together on the bed to keep from fidgeting. "So, Barrow…wasn't such a great time," I hedged.

"What happened?" He asked. "Too boring?"

"No," I replied, "it definitely wasn't too boring."

"Too exciting?" Charlie countered, smiling indulgently. He really had no idea what I was going to say. The problem was that I really had no idea what I was going to say either. Instead, I opted for saying nothing. Actions would speak louder than words. Sighing, I reached up and slowly removed my sunglasses. Charlie didn't seem to notice anything at first, but then he paled as he focused in on my eyes and noticed for the first time that they were glowing red, just like Victoria's.

The doctor chose that moment to come into the room and I quickly slipped the sunglasses back onto my face, moving across the room so that the doctor could better speak to Charlie. He tried to answer the doctor's questions as best he could, but his eyes were locked onto my face and I knew that he was thinking about what he had just seen. Finally, the doctor turned to me and said, "He needs to get some more rest. He'll be less confused as time goes on."

"I'll try to get some sleep in a few minutes," Charlie promised. "I just need a little more time alone with my daughter."

"Alright," the doctor said. "But make it quick," he added, speaking to me.

I nodded and waited until he had left the room to move back over to my chair. Charlie didn't say anything at first and I didn't want to push him, so I waited. "Do you…," he started, but stopped. "I don't know how to ask this," he said, looking down at his hands. "I mean…"

"I don't drink human blood," I answered quickly, "if that's what you're trying to ask."

He breathed out a sigh of relief. "Okay," he said. "Good. Animal blood?" He asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "The Cullens are helping me."

"The Cullens are back?" Charlie asked. His eyes narrowed and I just knew that he was thinking of Edward.

"It's okay, Dad," I said, smiling at him. "They saved us."

"Us?"

"Eben and Stella are here too," I answered. "We sort of had an…incident in Barrow."

Charlie nodded. I wasn't certain how much he wanted to know, so I let him ask the questions. "Was it bad?" He asked.

"Yeah," I replied quietly. The faces of everyone who died flashed through my mind in an instant. I would literally never forget any of them.

"Did it hurt?" He asked, looking into my face. There was such pain in his eyes that I knew I had to lie to him.

"No," I murmured. "It didn't hurt. It was quick. I barely knew what happened."

He studied my face for a long time before he nodded, evidently satisfied that I was telling him the truth. "And you're gonna be okay now?" He asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "I'll live forever," I said and shrugged. "It's not such a bad deal."

Charlie snorted. "I guess I don't have to worry about you getting hurt anymore huh?" He asked. "That red haired lady seemed pretty tough."

"You could say that," I replied. I reached out, nodding at him to feel my skin. With tentative fingers, he circled his hand around my arm and squeezed.

"You're like rock," he commented, his voice awed.

"No more hospital bills," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. A flicker of sadness crossed Charlie face as he let go of my arm. "What is it?" I asked.

"You can't stay here, can you?" He asked. "I mean, you could for a while, I guess. But people would start to notice right? Because you won't age?"

"I can't stay here," I confirmed, my voice breaking.

"Will I be able to see you?" Charlie asked. His eyes looked glossy and I realized that my father was about to cry. I had never seen him cry.

"All the time," I answered, trying to smile. "We won't be far. Alice said we'll be moving to Alaska."

"Alice," Charlie said fondly. "She's here?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"She's taking good care of you?" He questioned.

"The best," I replied.

"Good," he said. He blinked a few times, struggling to regain his composure.

"You should get some rest, Dad," I said, reaching out and taking his hand. "Doctor's orders, remember?"

"How long will you be sticking around?" Charlie asked.

"I'll stay as long as you need me to," I promised.

Charlie nodded and I let go of his hand as he settled back down on his pillow. He didn't close his eyes for a long time, just gazed at my face, perhaps trying to see all of the differences, but his eyes finally slipped shut and his breathing evened out. I waited until I was certain that he was asleep before getting up and moving out of the room. I could still smell wet dog, but I didn't see Sam in the hallway. I was surprised to see Edward instead. He was leaning against the wall at the very end of the hall, looking down at his shoes, with his hands stuffed in his pockets. When he heard me start walking toward him, he looked up. For a brief moment, I felt like I was seeing him for the first time all over again and he took my breath away. I smiled; he still had the power to dazzle me, even now, even after everything we'd been through.

"What?" He asked, confusion spreading over his features.

"Nothing," I said, shaking my head and running a hand through my hair. "What're you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I thought I'd come see how Charlie was, but then I heard you two talking, so I decided to wait."

"Thanks," I said, leaning against the wall next to him.

"You okay?" He asked.

I nodded absently. "Charlie's awake," I reminded him. "That's all I wanted. He seems to be doing fine and I think he's accepted everything."

"He's a strong man," Edward replied. "In many ways, you're very much like him. He doesn't care what you are, so long as you're still you."

We stood silently for a while, two inhumanly beautiful statues, until I started to get agitated. I wasn't sure what I wanted. Part of me wanted Edward far away, but another part wanted him to wrap his arms around me like he would have before he left. I wished he would do something, instead of just standing there. I chanced a peek over at him and frowned. He wasn't standing nearly so still as I thought. His hands were trembling. I realized then that he was nervous; he didn't know how I would react to whatever it was that he wanted to do, so he was waiting, trying to feel me out. Sighing, I inched over to him and leaned my head against his shoulder. He froze for a moment before slowly pulling me closer and wrapping his arm around me.

"We okay?" He asked. His voice sounded so hopeful, so much like a seventeen year old.

"Yeah," I said, smiling into his arm, "we're okay."


End file.
